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CLASSIC: "Vitamin Donuts" Were A Real Thing · Ridiculous History

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: We've returned with a classic episode. We'd like to do
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: a little intro and check in on these because we're
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: going back to the archives and we're digging up something
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: really weird from twenty eighteen. You guys, donut guys.
• 0:14
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you know what I would to I was just
• 0:15
  Speaker 2: in Athens, Georgia over the weekend and shout out to
• 0:18
  Speaker 2: a little a cafe called Cafe Racer. They do excellent
• 0:23
  Speaker 2: breakfast biscuits. It used to be just a little shack
• 0:26
  Speaker 2: kind of like on one of the very windy, narrow
• 0:29
  Speaker 2: country roads leading to Athens, Georgia, but now it is
• 0:31
  Speaker 2: a going concern with a nice drive through on Broad
• 0:35
  Speaker 2: Street in Athens. But they do potato donuts, which I
• 0:40
  Speaker 2: believe are gluten free naturally they use potato starch instead
• 0:44
  Speaker 2: of flour, and they don't taste like potatoes. They just
• 0:48
  Speaker 2: I think are naturally gluten free and they are delicious.
• 0:50
  Speaker 2: I've never tried them before. Not necessarily infused with extra
• 0:55
  Speaker 2: vitamins though.
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: Ah yes, yes, I love when people pronounce it vim
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: and so you know, for a lot of people, a
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: baked good, be it a sweeter savory thing is kind
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: of a go to breakfast accompaniment, right, especially if you
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: are in a hurry. You might have your cup of
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: coffee and you don't want to have all that caffeineo
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: an empty stomach, so you have like a nice little
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: snack or something. And you might have seen the meme too,
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: unrelated about what they call it the finish breakfast, and
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: it's just it's like a cup of coffee or espresso
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: and then a shot of vodka and a cigarette.
• 1:33
  Speaker 3: So the item was a spectacle.
• 1:35
  Speaker 2: I'm actually currently drinking a So Good So You Energy
• 1:40
  Speaker 2: Passion Fruit juice Shop, which is infused with one hundred
• 1:45
  Speaker 2: milligrams of organic caffeine plus one hundred percent daily value
• 1:51
  Speaker 2: vitamins B five and B twelve. So vitamin infused things
• 1:58
  Speaker 2: are still very much a going concern, you know. Now
• 2:01
  Speaker 2: it's more in the realm of juices or energy drinks
• 2:04
  Speaker 2: or what have you. But maybe back in the day
• 2:07
  Speaker 2: where we know things like bacon were essentially sold to
• 2:11
  Speaker 2: the public as a must have for breakfast, You're not
• 2:14
  Speaker 2: an American if you don't need bacon for breakfast. Shout
• 2:17
  Speaker 2: out Edward. Brene's marketing played a big role into creating
• 2:21
  Speaker 2: the kind of staples that we still think of today.
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly, And this is this is something we see
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: in cyclical health and pop culture reporting. A study will
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: come out that says this thing is bad for you,
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: like fat's bad for you, or no, actually sugar's bad
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: for you, or no, actually carbs are bad for you.
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: Industries try to respond to this in any number of ways, rebranding,
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: you know, the image of their product. And back in
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: the day, as we were all surprised to find someone
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: did that with donuts, and they said, let's let's reframe donuts,
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: you guys, Let's add add some vitamins and some minerals,
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: and let's sell it to the public not as a
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: delectables sugar retreat, but as something that could be considered
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: health food. Spoiler, you're not going to find vitamin donuts
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: easily today, and we figured out why.
• 3:19
  Speaker 3: Yeah, for pep and vigor. Am I right, Ben?
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you're right, You're right pep and vigor, and we
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: wish you plenty of pep as you check out our
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: weirdly vigorous examination of the vitamin donut. Ridiculous History is
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: a production of iHeartRadio, What a Busy Day, Friends and Neighbors.
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: Right before we started recording we both accidentally hung out
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: in the studio together to eat. My name is Ben, my.
• 4:16
  Speaker 2: Name is Noel, And hey, hey, you you're losing.
• 4:20
  Speaker 3: You're losing.
• 4:21
  Speaker 2: You're losing, You're losing your vitamin C donuts.
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: It's true, it's true, And at the end of this episode,
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: we hope that you can let us know whether it's
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: a good or bad thing to have lost them. Of course,
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: where would we be without our super producer Casey Pegram
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: And I want to ask them, where would we be
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: without donuts?
• 4:44
  Speaker 2: We'd probably be leading happier, healthier lives, have lower blood pressure,
• 4:51
  Speaker 2: less diabetes, obesity would probably be diminished.
• 4:55
  Speaker 3: I don't know. I think it'd be a pretty beautiful
• 4:57
  Speaker 3: world without donuts.
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: Yeah, are you a fan of I just think it.
• 5:01
  Speaker 2: Was Sure, they're good, they're they're delicious, but they're just
• 5:04
  Speaker 2: so decadent. It's like, can you think of a more
• 5:07
  Speaker 2: decadent treat? I mean, I'm sure you could if you tried,
• 5:09
  Speaker 2: it would probably involve slathering a donut with some kind
• 5:12
  Speaker 2: of pudding.
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: I'm just not you know, I've just never been a
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: donut person. I don't have no just not a not
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: A claissant would be a little bit more on the
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: savory end. But it's strange because here in Atlanta, you know,
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: our office is down the street from a pretty well
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: known Krispy Kreme outlet, which rumor has it that Shack
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: actually owns now the Yeah, the one with.
• 5:38
  Speaker 3: The sign like with the one with the old school sign.
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: Yeah, apparently that is one of the many things in
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: the city owns. And then also, you and Casey and
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: I have witnessed over the past few years the rise
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: of the artisan donuts here in Atlanta, along with cupcakes.
• 5:55
  Speaker 3: I mean, it's great.
• 5:55
  Speaker 2: There's a place called Revolution Donuts that is fantastic. They
• 5:59
  Speaker 2: actually have a saved donut that I like that's got
• 6:01
  Speaker 2: like greere and like ham in it, and it's really good.
• 6:05
  Speaker 2: I honestly am more inclined to eat something like that.
• 6:08
  Speaker 2: I think I've lost my sweet tooth in addition to
• 6:10
  Speaker 2: my vitamin seat donuts.
• 6:11
  Speaker 3: Oh really, Yeah, that's sad.
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: So it's it's something that I think will on balance,
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: be better for both of us. Multiple studies indicate that
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: the average American eats way too much sugar, right, and
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: it's in so many foods that we consume. We should
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: point out that none of us. None of the three
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: of us are professional nutritionists, right, so whatever we say
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: is should not be taken as nutrition advice.
• 6:42
  Speaker 3: I'm sort of an armchair nutritionist.
• 6:45
  Speaker 2: I just sort of fling these whatever pops through my
• 6:47
  Speaker 2: head and just willy nilly because I think you need to.
• 6:52
  Speaker 3: Eat more riboflavin.
• 6:53
  Speaker 2: Band Just looking at you look a little peak and
• 6:55
  Speaker 2: I think riboflavian is what you need.
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: Then, so everybody knows nol is pointing in the old
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: in the style of the old World War two Uncle
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: Sam poster, but instead the caption instead of we need
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: you for the US Army, it would be you need riboflavin.
• 7:11
  Speaker 2: I'm also wearing a big, tall American flag hat right now.
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: Which I think is cool, and I'm really proud of
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: you for stretching your wings in this new things. I
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: think this could be big. I don't know if it's
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: an everyday hat, because you want to be special.
• 7:23
  Speaker 2: I did it for this episode. I was just trying
• 7:24
  Speaker 2: something out. But what is this episode about?
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: So glad you asked, because this episode is about donuts,
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: a very specific type of donuts, and before we get
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: into that, we should just give a brief history of donuts.
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: Pretty common. I would be surprised if you have not
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: ever heard of a donut, and still somehow are listening
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: to podcasts on the internet. Food like doughnuts has been
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: around for centuries and centuries and centuries, and people tell
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: you the American version of the donut traces back to
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: Dutch settlers Dutch collars, right, and they didn't have that
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: familiar ring shape. You can find a mention of donut
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: in a book by Washington Irvine in eighteen oh nine,
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: a History of New York from the Beginning of the
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: World to the end of the Dutch Dynasty. But over
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: time they became a super convenient snack for Americans.
• 8:24
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: I'm both coast, and our story takes place in the
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: world of donuts, but also in the world of crazy advertising,
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: which is one of our favorite things. We're talking about
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: the moment where before the six million dollar Man happened,
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: some food manufacturers said, all right, donuts are great, but
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: what if we could also make them healthy? What if
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: we could build them stronger, faster. I can't remember the
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: rest of the six million dollar.
• 8:51
  Speaker 3: Man thing faster, deeper, No, I don't know.
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: I'm thinking of deaf punk.
• 8:56
  Speaker 3: You are, I think I am too. That's all it
• 8:58
  Speaker 3: comes to mind there.
• 8:58
  Speaker 2: Yeah, but it's like, you know, it's it's it's utter
• 9:01
  Speaker 2: flim flam, you know, and we're going to get to that.
• 9:04
  Speaker 2: But what if, ben, you know, what if you could
• 9:07
  Speaker 2: do that.
• 9:09
  Speaker 3: That'd be cool, but you can't.
• 9:10
  Speaker 2: So the next best thing is just to figure out
• 9:12
  Speaker 2: a way to convince people that it's a thing, and
• 9:14
  Speaker 2: then you know, it takes the burden of guilt off
• 9:18
  Speaker 2: of them for eating this trash food.
• 9:20
  Speaker 3: Basically right right, exactly.
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  Speaker 1: Back in the early nineteen forties, the biggest donut maker
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  Speaker 1: of the time, an outfit named, in a burst of creativity,
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  Speaker 1: the Donut Corporation of America.
• 9:33
  Speaker 3: Genius.
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: Genius A little on the nose, someone say, but we're fans.
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: They tried pushing this product. They tried to do this thing,
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: and they created something called vitamin donuts.
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  Speaker 3: But what what what the heck?
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: Man? What's a vitamin donut.
• 9:50
  Speaker 2: It's a donut that is fortified.
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  Speaker 3: It is made with flour that is enriched with various vitamins,
• 10:02
  Speaker 3: synthesized vitamins, and it was a popular trend in general
• 10:06
  Speaker 3: at the time. Kellogg's even had a cereal called Pep
• 10:10
  Speaker 3: Cereal and companies like Libby's and Bird's Eye, which are
• 10:15
  Speaker 3: still around today. They sell like frozen pot pies and stuff.
• 10:18
  Speaker 3: We're all about this language of it being enriched, vitamin infused,
• 10:23
  Speaker 3: or whatever. There are different ways of putting it, and
• 10:26
  Speaker 3: there was a golden age for this nonsense.
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: Absolutely, vitamin doughnuts specifically had diamine and it's vitamin B
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: three and iron. No riboflavin fortification that I can find,
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: which is a crime.
• 10:41
  Speaker 2: Just that twitch I'm seeing in your eye. I feel
• 10:43
  Speaker 2: like magnesium maybe it would be the.
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: Maybe it's magnesium and nola is absolutely correct. There was
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: a there was an advertising creeze to make you think
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: that product A was healthier or a smart investment due
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: to this extra nutritional bang you got.
• 11:04
  Speaker 3: For your buck.
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: You know what I thought of when we were looking
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: at some of this stuff off air was the cycle
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: of language and advertising. Like in the nineties, Remember everything
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: was what was it? Was it digital in the nineties.
• 11:19
  Speaker 3: Sure, yeah, like the the indie glow watches and stuff.
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: Like that, you know, or like organic in the early
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: two thousands and so maybe fortified was one of the
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: buzz terms of the forties.
• 11:33
  Speaker 2: You know one from today and I to get too
• 11:35
  Speaker 2: far off topic, that I heard the other the other
• 11:37
  Speaker 2: day that really I think is totally accurate is things
• 11:40
  Speaker 2: that are like recyclable or like made from supposedly made
• 11:43
  Speaker 2: from recycled material, like water bottles. They say up to
• 11:47
  Speaker 2: thirty percent or forty percent. And in an interview on
• 11:51
  Speaker 2: NPR that I heard, the question was posed to like
• 11:53
  Speaker 2: a recycling expert, like does.
• 11:56
  Speaker 3: That mean it could be like one percent?
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: The answer is yes, oh boy, yeah, we have to
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: be careful with that language. I hadn't thought of that.
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: With recycling, I'm familiar with that. It's similar to like
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: a portion of the proceeds from this will be donated to,
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: you know, this amazing charity.
• 12:14
  Speaker 2: But speaking of the ads you're talking about, these campaigns
• 12:16
  Speaker 2: were everywhere and the poster for Vitamin Donuts is delightful
• 12:20
  Speaker 2: and horrifying. It says vitamin big red letters surrounded by
• 12:25
  Speaker 2: these like hashtags of sparkling energy and then donuts.
• 12:29
  Speaker 3: And then on either side are the most rosy cheeked
• 12:33
  Speaker 3: you know, just.
• 12:35
  Speaker 2: Up and at them little tikes that you could ever imagine,
• 12:38
  Speaker 2: one of them holding a donut with a bite taken.
• 12:40
  Speaker 3: Out of it. Their cheeks are blood red, and I
• 12:43
  Speaker 3: think that was meant to imply health and vitality. And
• 12:47
  Speaker 3: what's the catchphrase, ben.
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: Oh gosh for pep and vigor. Each doughnut fortified with
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: a minimum of twenty five units of vitamin B one.
• 12:56
  Speaker 3: Vitamin donuts gorge your way to health.
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: Yeah, right. Look at the way that poor little girl
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: in the bottom left of the posters staring at those things.
• 13:06
  Speaker 3: She wants them, she wants them. And the size is
• 13:09
  Speaker 3: all wrong too.
• 13:10
  Speaker 2: The scale is really this perspective is very strange because
• 13:12
  Speaker 2: the donuts are kind of in the four and the
• 13:14
  Speaker 2: girl is sort of on the same visual plane, but
• 13:16
  Speaker 2: the donuts are like the size.
• 13:18
  Speaker 3: Of her head. It's a very odd ad.
• 13:22
  Speaker 2: This was a failure not just from the donut contingent,
• 13:27
  Speaker 2: but from other companies that tried it as well. And
• 13:29
  Speaker 2: that's because of the Nutrition Division of the US government's
• 13:33
  Speaker 2: War Food Administration.
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: Right, m hmm, absolutely right, nol So, the Nutrition Division
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: of the War Food Administration had clout and it awarded
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: a seal of approval to companies when it approved their
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: nutrition claims. But the problem with the donuts was this.
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: The donuts were made with as As you had mentioned earlier,
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: Noel enriched white flower and this meant, according to the
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: boffins at the Nutrition Division, this meant that the doughnuts
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: themselves were not enriched with vitamins, only the flour they
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: were made from was enriched.
• 14:10
  Speaker 2: See I picture them like instead of sprinkles, you have
• 14:14
  Speaker 2: horse pills. All your vitamins are just like, you know,
• 14:18
  Speaker 2: with a nice cream filling intermixed with you know, Flintstone's chewables.
• 14:24
  Speaker 3: Which that doesn't sound half bad.
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: I do a lot of people who ate Flintstones chewables
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: like candy, just for the taste.
• 14:31
  Speaker 3: They're delightful.
• 14:32
  Speaker 2: I'm not a fan of chalky things, but I like
• 14:34
  Speaker 2: gummy vitamins.
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: Actually, i'm a fan of the guns.
• 14:37
  Speaker 2: I eat those for fun. Once ode'd on vitamin C,
• 14:41
  Speaker 2: it was not a pretty pictus.
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: Really, how old were you?
• 14:43
  Speaker 3: It was like last week?
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: Is that why you have that kind of I didn't
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: want to say anything to you.
• 14:49
  Speaker 3: That's okay, that's what they say about me. That's a glow.
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: Okay, Well, I'm glad you're I'm glad you're all right.
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: It's so it looks like I am a riboflavi In
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: Vampire and you are this citrusy door of vitamin C death.
• 15:02
  Speaker 3: Well, yeah, it's like that.
• 15:04
  Speaker 2: Character in the Superman movie with the nukes and stuff
• 15:07
  Speaker 2: who kind of was berthed from the sun and all
• 15:09
  Speaker 2: of a sudden started growing creepy fingernails and could shoot
• 15:12
  Speaker 2: fireballs out of his eyes. That was me when I
• 15:14
  Speaker 2: ate the whole jar of vitamin sea gummies. Not gonna
• 15:17
  Speaker 2: do that again.
• 15:18
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: Yeah, we have to be careful because even though we
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: are taught often to associate vitamins with health and good decisions,
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: medically speaking, it is absolutely possible to have too much
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: of a good thing, and there are consequences to that.
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: But here's another thing about this enriched white flower. It
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: sounds great, and even today, in twenty eighteen years we
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: record this. If you're in the United States and you
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: go to your average grocery store, you're going to see
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: that quite a few food products that use flower use
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: enriched white flower. It's just the most common thing. But
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: it's not a superfood.
• 15:59
  Speaker 2: No. It's sort of like figuring out how to turn
• 16:02
  Speaker 2: big parts into gelatine, you know. It's sort of like
• 16:05
  Speaker 2: making lemons into lemonade. It's just taking an unpleasant byproduct
• 16:09
  Speaker 2: or just something that was just happening anyway and figuring
• 16:11
  Speaker 2: out how to sell it, you know, put a bow
• 16:13
  Speaker 2: on it.
• 16:13
  Speaker 3: That's what this whole. Hey, we've got this stuff we
• 16:16
  Speaker 3: already use and it's the cheapest product available and the
• 16:18
  Speaker 3: easiest natural path to making this stuff's let's call it
• 16:21
  Speaker 3: something cool as people think they're buying something different, right.
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: So what do dietitians think of this stole? Like, what
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: are the experts saying about enriched flower?
• 16:32
  Speaker 3: Yes, Sarah Glme, who is a pal of ours in
• 16:35
  Speaker 3: the office, wrote this article for How Stuff Forworks, Vitamin
• 16:37
  Speaker 3: donuts were a thing question of mark question mark I
• 16:40
  Speaker 3: added the second question mark.
• 16:41
  Speaker 2: But she spoke to a dietitian from Birmingham, Alabama at
• 16:46
  Speaker 2: the Health and Wellness Center Saint Vincent's one nineteen and
• 16:50
  Speaker 2: she asked her about the efficacy of enriched flower and
• 16:54
  Speaker 2: this is how she responded. As much as I would
• 16:57
  Speaker 2: love for them to be healthy, she says, I really
• 16:59
  Speaker 2: wouldn't consider donuts made with enriched white flour a healthy
• 17:03
  Speaker 2: source of nutrients. Doughnuts are made using only refined white flower,
• 17:06
  Speaker 2: and these refined carbohydrates have been shown to be worse
• 17:10
  Speaker 2: for your health than saturated fat ouch.
• 17:14
  Speaker 3: Oh.
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: Also an editorial correction here on my part, the enriched
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: flower did contain riboflavord yes, as well as fulic acid.
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: So rest asshured everybody who is about to throw away
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: their collection of vintage vitamin donuts. So the Nutrition Division
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: wanted the Donut Corporation to call them not vitamin donuts,
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: but to call this product enriched flower donuts, which is
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: just not a sexy a name. What do you think?
• 17:46
  Speaker 3: Absolutely not?
• 17:47
  Speaker 2: I mean, it certainly does not fill my heart with vim,
• 17:51
  Speaker 2: vigor and pep.
• 17:52
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: And so even though the donor Nut Corporation lost the
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: battle regarding vitamin donuts with the Nutrition Division, the Donut
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: Corporation went on to do decades of business as donut advocates.
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: It's probably the best way to say it, almost like
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: a donut lobby. I don't want to get close to
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: calling them big donut, but I think that's a hilarious phrase.
• 18:22
  Speaker 2: I mean, you say a big don and it makes
• 18:24
  Speaker 2: me think of that donut shop in La near the
• 18:25
  Speaker 2: airport with the big giant doughnut on the top.
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yeah, it's called I you know what's fixed her?
• 18:31
  Speaker 3: Though?
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: I feel like I'm just gonna spend every trip to
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: La I have seen that donut shop and never going
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: in because I'm always in a hurry too from the airport.
• 18:41
  Speaker 3: I mean, you're lucky if you get a chance to
• 18:42
  Speaker 3: stop it. In and Out Burger. That's true. That's true.
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: And this is not related to anything. Did I tell
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: you I went to an in and out Burger for
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: the first time?
• 18:50
  Speaker 3: No? You didn't? What you think?
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: I you know? I at first I was a little
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: bit let down because there have been so much hype
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: about it. And then I tried the burger Burger is solid.
• 19:02
  Speaker 3: It's really good.
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: It's really good.
• 19:03
  Speaker 3: It's good. It's got like a almost like a cinnamon
• 19:05
  Speaker 3: e vibe to it.
• 19:06
  Speaker 2: There's something they put in the patties that like really
• 19:08
  Speaker 2: has an interesting, robust flavor.
• 19:11
  Speaker 3: I'm a fan. Did you get an Animal Style?
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: I did not. That's the way to go, That's what
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: I should have done. I think double double, double double
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: Animal Style. Hopefully I'll be back there again sometime. And
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: I'm all about Noel and I are both all about
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: exploring not just fast food, but any different local food
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: that we run across in our travels. Trash food, the
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: world over the world over. So for instance, this includes
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: things like Crown Burger and Utah Pals in East Tennessee,
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: which I still have to take you to if we
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: ever get get up around that way, in the hollers
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: and the cricks.
• 19:46
  Speaker 2: I know we're off topic a little bit, but I
• 19:48
  Speaker 2: saw an article on Mental Flus today that was a
• 19:50
  Speaker 2: map showing what the most popular burger is in every state,
• 19:54
  Speaker 2: and you know what it is in most states?
• 19:56
  Speaker 3: What is it? Five guys they took over, They really
• 19:59
  Speaker 3: really did.
• 20:00
  Speaker 2: Only one was Burger King And then obviously the West
• 20:03
  Speaker 2: Coast is all in and out and what a Burger
• 20:06
  Speaker 2: reigned supreme in Texas and I think a couple of
• 20:08
  Speaker 2: the surrounding states. But five Guys was the champion.
• 20:12
  Speaker 3: Wow. Time, I was surprised.
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: It's pretty good, but I didn't know it was such
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: a force.
• 20:18
  Speaker 2: And the ham I mean, it's it's a good equality burger.
• 20:21
  Speaker 2: We have around here a thing called cookout, which I
• 20:24
  Speaker 2: think is sort of a southern regional thing. Yeah, it's
• 20:27
  Speaker 2: pretty cool because you can you get a combo and
• 20:30
  Speaker 2: for your sides, you get to choose two sides. You
• 20:32
  Speaker 2: can choose a chicken casadia and chicken nuggets or double
• 20:35
  Speaker 2: chicken nuggets, or like a corn dog or two chicken
• 20:38
  Speaker 2: casadias or two corn dogs.
• 20:40
  Speaker 3: It's really really good for your health.
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: I have no idea how they make money.
• 20:43
  Speaker 3: You got to order the trade. It's like four dollars too.
• 20:46
  Speaker 2: Anyway, we digress, Ben, Let's say we wrapped this episode
• 20:49
  Speaker 2: up with a fun hodgepodge of some other abysmal food
• 20:54
  Speaker 2: failures and or misleading ad campaigns.
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: I completely agree. How about you kick us off?
• 21:01
  Speaker 2: Only because Casey mentioned it. McDonald's just had some pretty
• 21:05
  Speaker 2: hilarious food fails over the years. One was called the Mcafrica,
• 21:12
  Speaker 2: and this was a confection that was only available in
• 21:17
  Speaker 2: Southern Africa, and in a pr nightmare, McDonald pulled that
• 21:24
  Speaker 2: product because apparently calling something Mick in the.
• 21:28
  Speaker 3: Whole country isn't bad form. Yeah, it looks like it's made.
• 21:32
  Speaker 2: With just flatbread, and it looks like a like a
• 21:34
  Speaker 2: big Mac, but with like two pieces of flatbread.
• 21:36
  Speaker 3: It doesn't look particularly appetizing. But the Mcafrica I always
• 21:40
  Speaker 3: think of it.
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: We're talking about failed food products from fast food, I always.
• 21:44
  Speaker 3: Think of the Hula Burger.
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: The Hula Burger was also from McDonald's made by Ray
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: Kroc himself, the driving force behind McDonald's success, who always
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: had a million ideas.
• 21:59
  Speaker 3: He was just throwing ideas left and right.
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: They wanted to make a burger for Catholics who didn't
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: eat meat on Fridays, so instead of be for a
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: chicken patty, it had a grilled pineapple slice topped with cheese.
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: People hated it.
• 22:13
  Speaker 2: Yeah, the picture of it that I see here, it's
• 22:14
  Speaker 2: obviously not a professional shot.
• 22:16
  Speaker 3: But it looks. It looks like something. It looks like
• 22:19
  Speaker 3: a dead thing.
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it looks.
• 22:22
  Speaker 3: It looks bad.
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: I mean, you can't blame the folks for trying. But
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: what about market research? You know? Did they just not
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: have that at that time?
• 22:30
  Speaker 2: Yeah, well, you know, it probably wasn't as easy to
• 22:32
  Speaker 2: conduct as it is today. You'd had to go like
• 22:33
  Speaker 2: door to door or get people to fill.
• 22:35
  Speaker 3: Stuff out, and no one wants to do that.
• 22:38
  Speaker 2: We're not gonna harp on McDonald's and fast food. I
• 22:40
  Speaker 2: just wanted to mention those those are fun, ye, But
• 22:42
  Speaker 2: let's talk about some more campaigns. Remember ovaltine Oh yeah, yeah, yeah,
• 22:46
  Speaker 2: also fortified right, Yeah, it's like you know, malted powdered
• 22:50
  Speaker 2: drink you mix with your milk, and it, you know,
• 22:53
  Speaker 2: to be fair, contains quite a bit of fortification in
• 22:57
  Speaker 2: the form of calcium, folic acid, iron, zinc, are how, riboflavin, viamin,
• 23:01
  Speaker 2: vitamin B six, vitamin B twelve, vitamin C, and vitamin A.
• 23:06
  Speaker 2: And it is a legacy product in that same period
• 23:10
  Speaker 2: that we were talking about, but they seem to have
• 23:11
  Speaker 2: managed to continue to promote it as kind of a
• 23:16
  Speaker 2: healthful supplement type drink and people love the stuff.
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: It is delicious, people love it, it is Its status
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: is a healthy beverage is controversial, but I think a
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: lot of people get it for nostalgic reasons as well.
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: You know, like Grandma always made Oval Team.
• 23:33
  Speaker 2: It's an immediate like blast to your childhood when you
• 23:36
  Speaker 2: take a sip of it, and then you know, not
• 23:37
  Speaker 2: to mention.
• 23:38
  Speaker 3: More Oval Team please, you know.
• 23:39
  Speaker 2: Like it's pretty interesting when these companies build such strong
• 23:44
  Speaker 2: pr that goes so far back and they're able to
• 23:46
  Speaker 2: just kind of ride that snake to like perpetual ubiquity
• 23:49
  Speaker 2: in the public consciousness.
• 23:50
  Speaker 3: Even though Oval teen you don't hear about it too much.
• 23:52
  Speaker 3: They don't like have ads all over the place, you know,
• 23:54
  Speaker 3: but yeah, it's definitely a thing. Also, not to mention, Ben,
• 23:58
  Speaker 3: I don't know if you've heard about this, but there
• 23:59
  Speaker 3: are stuff that are saying that vitamin supplements not as
• 24:02
  Speaker 3: big of a thing as we maybe used.
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: To think, absolutely absolutely, because there's there are questions about
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: how much benefit they actually convey to your body, depending
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: upon the manner in which they are ingested or the
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: manner in which they are included in the manufacturing process.
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: Like vitamin water is a perfect example exactly.
• 24:24
  Speaker 2: And again I think they are able to get away
• 24:26
  Speaker 2: with calling the product vitamin water because on the side
• 24:28
  Speaker 2: it does list a crap ton of additives that are,
• 24:33
  Speaker 2: you know, things you would find in multivitamin supplements. But
• 24:36
  Speaker 2: I think a lot of it has to do with like,
• 24:37
  Speaker 2: if you're deficient in something, your doctor can prescribe you
• 24:41
  Speaker 2: to take something that like, you know, gets you to
• 24:42
  Speaker 2: the levels you need to be. But if you're not
• 24:45
  Speaker 2: and you're just like loading yourself up with all these
• 24:47
  Speaker 2: different vitamins, is their benefit there? And there are studies
• 24:50
  Speaker 2: out there that seem to think there may even be harm.
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: Right, especially when consider how much sugar comes along with
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: the deal. There's you know, there's a word of foods
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: and drinks that skirt just beneath the threshold of being
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: legally culpable for their claims, and advertisers do spend a
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: lot of time figuring out language that sounds good but
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: does not really promise something right, Like is there a
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: definition of natural? What is natural other than something that
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: sounds good on a box in the grocery store, and
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: even beyond that. This makes me wonder if vitamin water
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: is going to seem as silly in a few years
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: as vitamin donuts seem today, you know what I mean?
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: Like I can see future historians going, why don't you
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: just drink water and get a doctor to give you vitamins.
• 25:45
  Speaker 3: Because it doesn't taste like dragon fruit? That's dough.
• 25:50
  Speaker 2: Remember fifty cent He had a big steak in vitamin
• 25:52
  Speaker 2: water and there was that formula fifty flavor. Someone told
• 25:55
  Speaker 2: me that they thought that tasted like the way you
• 25:57
  Speaker 2: would think grape sweat would taste.
• 26:00
  Speaker 3: That's so gross. Just leave that right there.
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: Leave the Oh, speaking of drinks, we found some other failed,
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: like spectacularly failed beverages. Did you ever hear of pepsi?
• 26:12
  Speaker 3: Am? Is it like breakfast pepsi? Yeah?
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: I had never heard of this, so they thought, you
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: know what, people aren't really drinking soda in the morning,
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: so let's do exactly what you're describing. Let's get some
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: breakfast soda drinkers. And they introduced this thing in the
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: late eighties called pepsi am. It had all the sugar
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: and twice the caffeine of regular pepsi finally, right, it
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: lasted about a year.
• 26:38
  Speaker 2: Well, speaking of soda, let's have some more fun. We're
• 26:42
  Speaker 2: talking about like more current.
• 26:44
  Speaker 3: Things that fit in this fail model.
• 26:46
  Speaker 2: But let's let's go back back back to the nineteen
• 26:48
  Speaker 2: fifties where there was a campaign for seven Up that
• 26:51
  Speaker 2: shows an infant downing a seven up.
• 26:56
  Speaker 3: It says, why we have the youngest customers in the business.
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: I think the captured there or the motto is something
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: seven up for.
• 27:04
  Speaker 2: Babies exactly, and it says nothing does it like seven up?
• 27:08
  Speaker 2: And then it has a nice little recipe on the
• 27:10
  Speaker 2: side here, you know, for kids, a little trick that
• 27:13
  Speaker 2: makes a treat seven up in milk mix mixed chilled
• 27:17
  Speaker 2: seven up and cold milk and equal parts.
• 27:19
  Speaker 3: By pouring the seven up gently into the milk.
• 27:22
  Speaker 2: Do not stir the seven up, adds a light and
• 27:25
  Speaker 2: delicate flavor, making the delicious blended food drink.
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: Food drink the villain laugh.
• 27:35
  Speaker 3: You want to food drink, I don't know what that is.
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: Food drink sounds like a terrible translation of a traditional
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: beverage Somewhere. It's like, oh, welcome, thank you for coming.
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: Now we will have the ritual exchange of food drink.
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: So we found so many strange advertisements that that clearly
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: would be illegal today, and then also food products that
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: even if we allow for hindsight, they still sound like
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: just horrifically bad ideas.
• 28:09
  Speaker 2: And props to Hunter Oatman Stanford over at Collectors Weekly.
• 28:13
  Speaker 2: He made a list over there that we are pulling
• 28:16
  Speaker 2: from for some of these, and they're delightful.
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: I want to point out that to go back to
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: fast food, just briefly, I want to point out that
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: Taco Bell deserves a metal for all the strange things
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: they've tried over the years. There was a most notably
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: I remember the Taco Bell seafood salad, which just sounds
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: like a terrible idea.
• 28:39
  Speaker 2: Any notion of seafood from a fast food restaurant typically
• 28:43
  Speaker 2: is a red flag for me. Although I will occasionally
• 28:46
  Speaker 2: do a Captain D's, you know.
• 28:49
  Speaker 3: Under duress at least that's all they do.
• 28:52
  Speaker 2: It's not just an afterthought, you know what I mean,
• 28:54
  Speaker 2: Like the mc lobster right right back picking on the McDonald's.
• 28:58
  Speaker 3: Yeah, they had a mclobster that was only in the
• 29:00
  Speaker 3: main area.
• 29:01
  Speaker 2: But do you remember that I Love Lucy episode where
• 29:05
  Speaker 2: she gets the commercial for this thing called Vita meata veggamin.
• 29:09
  Speaker 2: It's very very popular and she's trying to do it,
• 29:11
  Speaker 2: and as it turns out, it's just chalk full of alcohol,
• 29:14
  Speaker 2: and every time she takes a swig of it, she
• 29:16
  Speaker 2: gets more and more plastered. And their slogan spoon your
• 29:20
  Speaker 2: way to health, and it's like totally clearly just chock
• 29:23
  Speaker 2: full of of straight booze. This one I found here
• 29:27
  Speaker 2: from the American Meat Institute from the fifties. It's just
• 29:31
  Speaker 2: a big old meat platter featured in the center and
• 29:34
  Speaker 2: then like nine hot dogs kind of like raining down
• 29:36
  Speaker 2: from the sky, and it.
• 29:38
  Speaker 3: Says two delicious ways to help keep yourself trim. And
• 29:41
  Speaker 3: the copy here is very similar to what they were
• 29:43
  Speaker 3: making fun of in that Lucy sketch. In this hot weather,
• 29:46
  Speaker 3: do you feel tired, listless, all washed out? Don't blame
• 29:50
  Speaker 3: it all on the heat. Look at your diet too.
• 29:52
  Speaker 3: Scientific studies show it might well be due to a
• 29:56
  Speaker 3: lack of high quality protein, the kind you get in meat.
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: And for long time listeners, if you've got to check
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: out the visuals on this ad, because they have what
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: looks like an aspick or meat jelly in the center
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: of the platter.
• 30:10
  Speaker 3: Oh, I think you're right. I thought, you know what,
• 30:11
  Speaker 3: that's exactly what it is.
• 30:12
  Speaker 2: At first I thought it was like a cheese you know,
• 30:15
  Speaker 2: like a Pimento cheese mountain or something like that.
• 30:17
  Speaker 3: I think it is exactly that. Ben.
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: We also found an ad that was for sugar, just sugar.
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: It says sugar might just be the willpower you need
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: to curb your appetite. Sugar's quick energy can be the
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: willpower you need to eat less. And it has close
• 30:37
  Speaker 1: up shots of people drinking soda and eating candy. And
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: this was part of a very large cover up that
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: we only recently learned about.
• 30:47
  Speaker 3: And the woman in this picture on the left, she
• 30:49
  Speaker 3: looks terrifying and is drinking this soda in the most
• 30:52
  Speaker 3: unnatural way. It's like cocked off in this.
• 30:55
  Speaker 2: Weird canted angle and it's like one of those paper straws,
• 30:57
  Speaker 2: and she is absolutely just chewing it. It's just clamped
• 31:00
  Speaker 2: between her teeth, and she's got this kind of wandering
• 31:03
  Speaker 2: eye thing going on, like she is just jacked on sugar.
• 31:06
  Speaker 3: It's a very troubling image.
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and check out how sketchy this one is too,
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: because these ads come from nineteen sixty nine and they
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: include advice like have a soft drink before your main meal,
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: or snack on some candy an hour before lunch. And
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: there's not a company name you can follow up by
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: mailing someone named sugar Information. Also, sugar Information sounds like
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: a pretty cool code name.
• 31:31
  Speaker 2: Sure, it's like the sugar lobby, right that has reponsible
• 31:34
  Speaker 2: for this stuff.
• 31:35
  Speaker 3: It has to be. Boy, is it weird enough for you?
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: I'm feeling weird it out, man, I'm feeling like we
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: have we have not yet reached peak ridiculous advertising and
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: failed food campaigns. But I think this, I think we
• 31:52
  Speaker 1: should save the rest for another day.
• 31:54
  Speaker 3: What do you say? I think that's why it's ben.
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: So thank you so much for tuning in. If you
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: or someone you know had the fortune to try a
• 32:02
  Speaker 1: vitamin DONA, we'd like to hear about the taste, was
• 32:06
  Speaker 1: it different from a regular Dona? And what are your
• 32:09
  Speaker 1: favorite failed food crazes. We'd also, of course like to
• 32:13
  Speaker 1: think our author Sarah Glme and our super producer Casey Peckwein.
• 32:18
  Speaker 2: And if I'm not mistaken, man, most of the flower
• 32:21
  Speaker 2: you buy today at the store is enriched flower. It's like,
• 32:24
  Speaker 2: there's nothing special about it. It's not magic vitamin flower.
• 32:28
  Speaker 3: It's true, it's true.
• 32:29
  Speaker 1: It's pretty much regular flower.
• 32:32
  Speaker 2: Now, let us know Denny Baker's out there and let
• 32:35
  Speaker 2: us know how you feel about this stuff.
• 32:37
  Speaker 3: Is it possible to make healthy baked goods? We're interested
• 32:41
  Speaker 3: right too, I said ridiculous at how stuffworks dot com.
• 32:43
  Speaker 2: You can check us out on all the social media's Again,
• 32:46
  Speaker 2: I second my co host Ben and thanking our super
• 32:48
  Speaker 2: producer Casey and also Alex Williams, who composed Arth.
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: The and most importantly you, so goodbye for now. We'll
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: talk to you very soon, and in the meantime, send
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: us all the weird ads you can find.
• 33:00
  Speaker 3: Plea