The Week: Most Recent Arts & Life:

Juicebox-shaped fruit: Best ad campaign ever?

The Week — Tue, 22 May 2012 11:55:00 -0400

The video: All it took was a great idea — plus two years of testing — and Brazilian juice company Camp Nectar was able to grow actual fruit in the shape of one of its juice boxes, complete with an embossed logo and a bendy-straw protrusion on the back. (Watch the video below.) The company created plastic molds in the shape of the juice boxes, then wrapped them around budding lemons, oranges, apples, guava, papayas, and passion fruit. They displayed the 1,123 box-shaped pieces of fruit in supermarkets to tout the fact that Camp Nectar's juice is full of real fruit.

The reaction...

Does eating organic food make you a jerk?

The Week — Mon, 21 May 2012 15:05:00 -0400

Buying and eating organic food makes many people feel better about themselves. (Not coincidentally, organic products often have panderingly positive names, such as Honest Tea, Purity Life, and Smart Balance.) The flip side, according to a new study published in Social Psychological and Personality Science, is that organic eaters often look down on others, and aren't shy about expressing their derision. Does going organic turn you into a jerk? Here's what you should know:

How did researchers study the effects of organic food?
They divided 60 people into three groups: One was shown images of organics...

10 disgusting objects allegedly found in fast food

The Week — Thu, 17 May 2012 08:10:00 -0400

Sure, fast food is convenient, cheap, and arguably tasty. But from time to time, consumers get a lot more than they bargain for — and we're not talking extra curly fries. From weird animal parts to syringes, here, 10 disgusting things people claim to have found lurking in their fast food:

1. An unidentifiable chicken organ
Earlier this month, a couple from the small town of Ocala, Fla., were returning from the movies and decided to swing by a local Popeye's Fried Chicken to bring home food for the young one. After opening the box's greasy lid, the pair realized they'd gotten a bit more...

Burger King's shift to cage-free eggs: A game-changer?

The Week — Thu, 26 Apr 2012 14:38:00 -0400

Burger King is winning praise from animal-rights activists after announcing Wednesday that by 2017 it will only buy eggs and pork that come from cage-free animals. Currently, just 9 percent of the chickens that produce BK's eggs and 20 percent of its pigs are cage-free. "Many tens of thousands of animals will now be in better living conditions," says Wayne Pacelle, president of the Humane Society of the United States. Burger King is the world's second-biggest fast food chain, so the shift is expected to expand the market for humanely produced food and pressure rivals to follow suit. Is this a ...

The cheeseburger pizza and 9 other Frankenstein fast foods: A slideshow

The Week — Wed, 25 Apr 2012 12:50:00 -0400

If you loathe choosing between a meat-laden pizza and a juicy burger, Pizza Hut in the Middle East has you covered. One-upping Pizza Hut U.K.'s recent food wonder — the Hot Dog Stuffed Crust Pizza — Pizza Hut Middle East's Crown Crust Pizza has mini cheeseburgers nestled into its crust. Not feeling the beef? The Chicken Fillet version has a crust made of chicken strips. If you're still hungry, here are nine other fast-food combos to tempt those daring tastebuds.

South Korea's risque Oreo breastfeeding ad: Genius?

The Week — Fri, 20 Apr 2012 11:22:00 -0400

The image: The celebrations for Oreo's 100th birthday are off to an improbably R-rated start. A leaked advertisement for Oreos in South Korea, which quickly whirled around the internet, features a baby holding an Oreo while feeding from a shapely breast. (See the NSFW image below.) The caption reads, "Milk's favorite cookie," and the ad was titled "Oreo Basic Instinct" by its creator, the advertising firm Cheil Worldwide. Kraft, Oreo's parent company, says that the ad was meant for an advertising forum in South Korea, and never intended for wide release.

The reaction: This "provocative ad is spectacular...

Should Big Macs be sold in hospitals?

The Week — Thu, 12 Apr 2012 18:16:00 -0400

Feel like gobbling a greasy Big Mac while you wait for test results at the hospital? It's easier than you might think to find a Mickey D's in health-care facilities, which is why the watchdog organization, Corporate Accountability International, is calling for the removal of McDonald's franchises from clinics nationwide, including the prestigious Cleveland Clinic and seven children's hospitals. The group's motion, endorsed by 2,000 health professionals, urges hospitals to end their contracts with McDonald's and "stop fostering a food environment that promotes harm, not health." Considering that...

Can ranch dressing become 'the new ketchup'?

The Week — Mon, 09 Apr 2012 14:20:00 -0400

Condiments are big business — worth $5.6 billion a year in the U.S., according to Bloomberg Businessweek — and Hidden Valley wants its flagship ranch dressing, now available in a thicker formula called "Hidden Valley for Everything," to have a more prominent spot at the table. How prominent? With the "Everything" campaign, the company wants ranch to be "as ubiquitous as ketchup on restaurant tables and in consumers' kitchens," Jon Balousek, head of the food, charcoal, and cat-litter division of Hidden Valley owner Clorox tells The Wall Street Journal. The labels on the new "retro-style...

Mary J. Blige's Burger King ad: 'Racist' or just 'hilarious'?

The Week — Wed, 04 Apr 2012 14:02:00 -0400

Burger King's much-ballyhooed rebranding — part of an attempt to stop a steep slide in sales — is getting off to a rocky start. The company dropped its new ad featuring hip-hop artist Mary J. Blige after it was assailed by fans for being "racist," "scary," and unintentionally "hilarious." (Watch below.) Burger King insists that the spot was scrubbed for unspecified "licensing issues," but that didn't douse suspicions that the negative response forced the burger chain to backtrack. Here, a guide to the controversy:

What's in the ad?
The clip features Blige standing on a table in a Burger...

Burger King's healthier menu: Can BK launch a comeback?

The Week — Tue, 03 Apr 2012 12:35:00 -0400

Burger King is rolling out 10 new dishes — the largest expansion of its menu since the venerable burger chain first opened its doors in 1954. The additions include smoothies, snack wraps, and salads, and are notable for being much healthier than Burger King's usual calorie-bomb fare. The shake up is part of a broader campaign to resuscitate the company, which last year fell to the number-three slot in the burger chain hierarchy, behind McDonald's and Wendy's. The overhaul will include a makeover of restaurants that have gone to seed, and a new advertising blitz featuring Jay Leno, David Beckham...

America's bacon obsession: 11 bacon-inspired products

The Week — Mon, 02 Apr 2012 13:01:00 -0400

Each American eats, on average, 18 pounds of bacon per year. Now, the obsession is reaching a new level. Bacon lovers can be buried in their favorite cured meat. While J&D's Bacon Coffin ($2,999.99) isn't actually made of bacon, it's painted with bacon and pork shading and comes equipped with a "bacon air freshener for when you get that buried-underground, not-so-fresh feeling." Here, 10 other bacon-inspired products:

The 85-year-old Olive Garden critic who went viral

The Week — Thu, 15 Mar 2012 17:48:00 -0400

Move over, keyboard-playing cats and subway singers. The newest internet sensation is 85-year-old newspaper writer Marilyn Hagerty, whose endearingly straightforward review of the first Olive Garden to open in Grand Forks, N.D., a town of just over 65,000 people, has caught the attention of Gawker, the Today show, and millions of chain-restaurant fans. What makes her review so memorable, and what do we know about this breakout restaurant critic? Here, a brief guide:

What was this review?
"[The new Olive Garden] is the largest and most beautiful restaurant now operating in Grand Forks," she observed...

Does cola cause cancer?

The Week — Wed, 07 Mar 2012 14:14:00 -0500

The Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI), a health watchdog group, is causing an uproar with its claim that several brands of soda contain sufficiently high levels of a carcinogen — five times the amount recommended by the state of California — to be dangerous. In a letter to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), CSPI says industrial caramel coloring — which gives Coke, Pepsi, and similar sodas their distinctive brownish hue — is made with a chemical that has been shown to cause various types of cancer in mice and rats. The American Beverage Association says...

The McRibster: A new, improved, European McRib?

The Week — Thu, 01 Mar 2012 12:31:00 -0500

The enigmatic McRib is back — and, this time, it's popped up overseas in an even less sensible incarnation known as the McRibster. McDonald's updated version of the cult-favorite sandwich, is a far cry from the typical sauce-slathered pig innards on bread. Will McRib purists salivate or cry foul? Here's what you should know:

What's the difference between the McRib and McRibster?
The classic McRib is a sauce-drenched processed pork sandwich with onion and pickle fixings. The McRibster, on the other hand, is a "monster of a novelty sandwich," says Paul Forbes at Eater....

McDonald's ban on tiny pig crates: A 'tipping point' for animal welfare?

The Week — Wed, 15 Feb 2012 06:30:00 -0500

McDonald's has been the target of close scrutiny from animal-rights groups for years. But now the world's most recognizable fast-food brand is winning praise from some of its former critics for pledging to phase out the use of gestation crates for its pigs, which are used for pork products ranging from the sausage in its breakfast sandwiches to the McRib. Could such a "crate ban" set a precedent for better farming practices in the United States? Here's what you should know:

What are gestation crates?
They're tiny metal stalls that hinder a sow from turning around or moving. Many of the animals...

McDonald's burgers: Now without 'pink slime'?

The Week — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 07:30:00 -0500

The "pink slime" once mixed into McDonald's hamburgers is gone. The world's biggest fast food chain is promising revisions to its beef recipe following mounting consumer pressure incited by celebrity chef Jamie Oliver on his TV show Food Revolution. Is the fast food industry turning a new leaf? Here's what you should know:

What exactly is the 'pink slime'?
The term was coined by Oliver to describe a mix of "beef trimmings washed in ammonium hydroxide to kill bacteria," says Loren Steffy at the Houston Chronicle. It has been used as a filler in McDonald's burger patties in the U.S. Oliver, a vocal...