“We are Forerunners. Guardians of all that exists. The roots of the Galaxy have grown deep under our careful tending. Where there is life, the wisdom of our countless generations has saturated the soil. Our strength is a luminous sun, towards which all intelligence blossoms… And the impervious shelter, beneath which it has prospered.”

Life isn’t supposed to imitate art like that

by | Jun 30, 2022 | Office Space | 9 comments

Sometimes you see a story in the news where you think to yourself, “the people behind that idea cannot possibly be so stupid as to turn that into reality, right???”. And then you read on a little bit, and you realise that not only are they that stupid, but they expect you to take the idea reasonably seriously as well. Such is the case with a plant-based burger that some odd characters from Sweden (do they have anything else over there?) came up with last year:

An ad for a plant-based burger flavored to mimic human meat won an award at the Cannes Lions Festival of Creativity last week – though it’s unclear who would be able to judge the vegan patty’s similarity to the real thing.

Swedish vegan food brand Oumph!’s Halloween-themed ad for its human-burger took home the festival’s Silver Brand Experience and Activation Lion on Thursday. Boasting that Oumph! “turn[s] plants into any mouth-watering meat you can imagine,” the ad, replete with bloody knives and other horror-movie imagery, revealed the brand was about to “bring you the scariest plant-based food ever – plant based human meat.”

A spokesperson for the company, which manufactured the delicacy from soy, mushrooms, wheat protein, plant-based fats and a “mysterious spice mix,” insisted “no humans were injured in the development of this product.”

The burger was only available in Sweden for Halloween 2021, according to the ad – “because otherwise it would be creepy” – and it’s unclear whether the Cannes judges had the opportunity to sample the merchandise, let alone compare it to the real thing.

Props to the mad Swedes behind the whole thing – remember, this is the country that produced KING DIAMOND, HAMMERFALL, AMARANTHE, and any number of whacked-out black metal outfits, so clearly they put something special in the water there. That being said, I wonder whether anyone behind the burger itself ever watched the dystopian sci-fi classic, Soylent Green:

Can we also just point out – who the HELL is qualified to judge the taste of a “plant-based burger” to make sure that it tastes like humans??? Did the judges somehow manage to convince a bunch of Dani tribesmen from Papua New Guinea to put on some pants and fly over to Sweden to judge the stuff, in exchange for a big basket full of human shinbones and offal as a reward?

Of course, they could always use that crazy Ukrop who mistook a blown-out Ukrainian T-64 tank for a destroyed Russian vehicle, and decided to snack on some human remains in it as a way of “sticking it to the Russians” [WARNING! I take no responsibility if the following clip makes you hurl]:

As one of my Telegram channel readers pointed out, the fact that the name of the company behind this weird idea is “Oumph!” is certainly appropriate, because that is the reaction of most of us when reading such stuff.

It’s also worth noting, though, that the burger itself looks DEEPLY unappetising:

To me, that looks like a particularly nasty turd sandwich. But that’s just me.

Meanwhile, I’ll stick to the following age-old dictum:

Eat a beef burger, save the planet, and avoiding having to eat your neighbour’s reconstituted remains. Win-win!

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9 Comments

  1. Jim S

    My identifying pronouns are: knuckledragging meateater. I buy a 1/4 of a cow every 6-7 months. I’ve been lucky to eat: elk, moose, bear, bison-buffalo, deer-venison, wild boar, ostrich, rabbit, pigs, and my beloved cow (steer), all of it cooked over an open flame grill, they way God wants to eat these animals he has provided to us for sustenance. Though I do have to admit, we did try “veggie” burgers when my wife and I were newlyweds. Threw them out halfway through dinner, and went out had real burgers at one of my favorite burger joints.

    Reply
  2. JohnC911

    Hey Didactic if you look at a normal burger in general it is mostly plant based. The only thing this burger is doing is taking away the last bit of meat that most of us need to be healthy. The fake meat uses like 14 different ingredients to try to copy (mainly only the taste) what meat already does.
    If you just take a piece of the fake meat and the beef it tastes different and honestly the fake tastes like poison.

    Reply
  3. Robert W

    I run a small farm with my wife, we’re new to agriculture 2 years ago. We’ll be harvesting two steers (castrated males) this fall and providing beef to four families for the next year (Mine + 3 customers).

    We’re doing this without grain inputs, without watering the pastures, and without pesticides. The 5 cows are happy, we’re happy. They know us, we know them.
    Solar energy is converted into biomass by grass. The grass is converted into muscle by the cows. The butcher converts it to meat, and we convert that into fuel for the family. It is a great system. It is the most renewable and sustainable agriculture on the planet. The longer we run this process the stronger the pasture becomes and the more complex and diverse the ecosystem. It is good for man, animals and the planet.

    This plant-based science zombie burger crap? It is complex in order for the grabblers to profit out of the middle steps. Satanic inversions abound in this whole industry, it is the end game of the tech-theology of the ‘follow the science’ crowd.

    Reply
    • furor kek tonicus ( Whipper Snapping Egg Suckers is my band name )

      you are aware of the importance of forcing the livestock to close crop the fields? modern farmers typically do this with temporary electric fences that can be moved every day.
      .
      close cropping has many benefits:
      1 – more grass grown for given time period; mature grass stops growing at a certain height.
      2 – keeps weeds and trees/shrubs to a minimum
      3 – probably most important, converts the maximum amount of cellulose into manure, making the soil healthier and keeping the dead grass from covering the ground and choking out new grass growth
      .
      if you want to clear property of trees and shrubs, goats are the easy way to do it.

      Reply
      • Robert W

        You have effectively described our program for both Goats and Cattle. It is wonderful.

        Reply
  4. Ramkumar

    Found the restored version of WKRP on DVD.
    Is Jan Smithers the most underrated and most poorly costumed, with the exception of a few episodes, actress in TV history?

    Reply
    • Joe

      “Is Jan Smithers the most underrated and most poorly costumed, with the exception of a few episodes, actress in TV history?”

      Probably.

      Reply

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