Past Entertainment Articles.

Article for the week of 3/13/05

Artificial Food Record Row
By, Grey Food

Recently Chinese scientists announced that they had manufactured edible food using no freshly grown produce, no yeasts, moulds or fungi. This announcement has been hailed as a crucial step towards ending world hunger and a potential boon for the Chinese economically. However challenges have already been launched, both towards the patent legality of the product, and to the title of having produced the world’s first edible food substance without using anything that traditionally qualifies as food. Stupidly several corporations and restaurant chains have filed lawsuits, claiming that they too have never produced anything edible that used real food, revealing their true intentions and causing their shares to drop immediately. Wisely McDonalds has remained silent, neither revealing the truth about their products through quick denials nor hasty lawsuits. Curiously Burger King has made an offer to be the world’s first franchise to sell the Chinese product, throwing speculation on their existing foodstuffs in both directions. Some expect that this is misdirection, causing no real change, while others believe it to be an honest business offer. Unsurprisingly the manufacturers of Twinkies claim that they are in fact the first ones to manufacture foodstuffs from non-food related items. However they relinquish all claim to produce an entirely non-food foodstuff, as only the filling is manufactured with non-food products, apparently from a differing recipe to that of the Chinese. While Twinkies are manufactured from old plastic sandals, sand and polysorbates, the Chinese effort consists mostly of mud and feathers. Extremist vegetarians have claimed this as a major victory for their philosophy and now claim that no one in the world need ever again consume animal products, or indeed any foodstuffs that are in anyway alive. What none of this takes into account however is the taste of the product. When asked Chinese officials stated that it “contained all the chewy enjoyment of mud combined with the crunchiness of feathers”. When Chinese taste testers were asked they screamed something about human rights violations and were promptly taken away and beaten for their own good by Chinese authorities. Health experts have declined to offer an opinion on the foodless food substances until they have been offered the appropriate kickbacks and bribes. Rumours do indicated that Martha Stewart, in a bid to have her criminal record completely expunged and her illegal activities of the future ignored, has agreed to “write” several “books” on the appropriate use of the substance around the home, mostly in cooking and preventative car maintenance, though the latter is thought to simply be a gimmick to widen Stewart’s appeal. Whatever the final judgement, result or findings one thing remains certain, this makes no difference to our eating habits in the slightest as long as the major chains retain their stranglehold on advertising and ingredients.