Hoax Museum Blog: Food

Banana Guard — image JL wants to know if Banana Guard is real or a hoax. But first, what is the Banana Guard? From the website, it's a "unique, patented device [that] allows for the safe transport and storage of individual bananas letting you enjoy perfect bananas anytime, anywhere." In other words, it stops your banana from getting bruised. It's available in a variety of colors such as Mellow Yellow and Glow in the Dark. So to answer JL's question: Yes, JL, there is a Banana Guard. It was invented by two Vancouver ER doctors, Drs. Sunil Mangal and David Agulnik, over ten years ago. Agulnik noted in a 2003 Toronto Star article about their invention that, "Many people who see this for the first time do seem to make reference to its adult toy appearance, but once they see the practicality and usefulness of the product they are eager to try it for its intended purpose."
Posted: Tue Apr 20, 2004.   Comments (4)

EU bans dangerous jellies — One can always depend on EU politicians for bizarre and arbitrary decrees. First there was their decision to reclassify carrots as fruit. Now they've decided to ban jelly mini cups, recognizing them as the obvious threat to public safety that they are. Apparently they're afraid that someone might choke on the things, even though no one has ever done so in the past. File this under 'sounds like a hoax, but actually isn't.'
Update: Apparently there have been deaths attributed to these jelly mini cups. Not in Europe, but in Canada. So it seems like the European bureaucrats are vindicated.
Posted: Tue Apr 13, 2004.   Comments (11)

Thorax Cake — Apparently this was made for a pumpkin carving party (Halloween, I assume), but it would work great as an April Fool's Day food prank as well. It's easily one of the most disgusting food creations I've ever seen, and yet it's just cake. (via Sore Eyes)
Posted: Thu Apr 01, 2004.   Comments (6)

ThinkGeek Hunger Eliminator — The folks at ThinkGeek have zeroed in on why people get fat: because they eat too much. Scientifically speaking it's called the ETM (eat too much) Syndrome. Their solution: the Gastron(tm) Remote Controlled Hunger Eliminator. "you can easily control your exact hunger level at any time. Simply swallow the tiny non-digestible Gastron base station and use the remote to adjust your personal hunger level. The base station inflates to fill your stomach, giving you that satisfied full feeling with zero calories." Hmmm. Kind of reminds me of FatSox, from a few years ago... the socks that would suck the fat out of you as you walked around during the day.
Posted: Thu Apr 01, 2004.   Comments (2)


Ice-Cream Potatoes, and other food pranks — image Family Fun magazine has quite a few suggestions for April Fool's Day pranks over at its site. I especially like their list of food pranks, such as preparing ice-cream potatoes (shown to the right). That's not potatoes with gravy. It's ice cream with butterscotch sauce. Also check out their recipe for creating green beans out of Jolly Rancher Fruit Chews.
Posted: Fri Mar 19, 2004.   Comments (0)

The Church of Beer — image If you love beer, then this is the church for you: The Church of Beer. It really is a church. If you're ordained as one of its ministers, then you can legitimately perform wedding services. But by its own admission, it doesn't take itself that seriously. I signed up to join right away. I'm even tempted to become an official Church of Beer minister, but I'm not sure about shelling out $15 for the honor.
Posted: Thu Mar 04, 2004.   Comments (3)

The Great Doughnut Hoax — Three years ago Robert Ligon announced that he had invented a low-fat doughnut. He stood to make millions off the invention. But a few days ago he was hauled off by the police, who simultaneously raided his warehouse and confiscated over 18,000 of his doughnuts (all of which, I'm sure, will be held as evidence... not one of them will mysteriously disappear). You see, Ligon's doughnuts weren't actually low-fat. He was simply buying normal donuts and slapping a low-fat label on them.
Posted: Wed Mar 03, 2004.   Comments (1)

The Jesus Pizza Project — imageAround the world hungry hackers and coders are about to eat pizza. But the question that vexes them is this: what if there is an image of Jesus hidden in that pizza? Now the JesusPizza Project will harness the power of thousands of computer users, via the miracle of distributed computing, to search images of those pizzas that are about to be eaten, to find out if one of them contains the image of Jesus. Just like the Seti-at-Home project, you download some software. When your computer is in screensaver mode this software goes to work, scanning downloaded images of pizzas. (Thanks to Phil Carmody for the link)
Posted: Sun Feb 01, 2004.   Comments (0)

Cheese Racing — cheese racingHere's a new sport that's taking the world by storm: Cheese Racing! The concept is that you throw one of those plastic-wrapped slices of processed cheese onto a hot barbeque. Instead of melting, the plastic puffs up and expands as the cheese inside heats up. If a bunch of people throw their slices onto the grill at the same time, then the winner is the person whose slice fully expands first. I didn't dare try this on my grill to see if the plastic really would expand instead of melting. But based on the pictures on the cheese racing site, I'm guessing that they're telling the truth. The hoax here may be in referring to the stuff inside the plastic as 'cheese.' I believe that 'processed cheese food' is the proper term. (Thanks to Emily for the link).
Posted: Sat Jan 24, 2004.   Comments (1)

Cheesy Jesus — cheesusBehold the power of Cheesus! Cheesus Industries manufactures and sells "premium quality, religious-themed cheese sculptures." That would be statues of Jesus made out of cheese. Of course, there's nothing to stop someone making a statue of Jesus out of cheese and selling it, but in this case there's no way to buy what Cheesus Industries claims to be producing. In reality, Cheesus Industries appears to be a satirical promotional tool for the 'cheesy' lounge singer Richard Cheese.
Posted: Sat Jan 24, 2004.   Comments (0)

Suspicious Soy Sauce — I've often heard tales about all the weird, disgusting things that get thrown into hot dogs and chicken nuggets during the manufacturing process... but soy sauce! I always figured that would simply be sauce made from soy beans. Turns out I was wrong. Over in China they're cracking down on companies that are surreptitiously manufacturing soy sauce from human hair. Watch our for sauce that's described on the label as being 'blended,' because that means it's not really made from soy. It's made from people!!
Posted: Mon Jan 19, 2004.   Comments (2)

Diet Holy Water — If you're feeling a little sinful, wash away your sins with some Diet Holy Water. Now, I don't think this is a hoax in the sense that this stuff isn't really for sale. Instead I'm linking to it because it seems like a marketing effort that has tongue firmly in cheek.
Posted: Wed Dec 17, 2003.   Comments (1)

Plastic Turkeys and Ploughman Lunches — The Guardian has an editorial piece about Bush's recent Turkey-gate scandal (the photo-op in Iraq with the inedible turkey). But Mark Lawson, the author of the article, points out that the bread-and-cheese pub food known as a ploughman's lunch is also a bit of a fake. Ploughman's lunches "claimed to link yuppies in pubs to their ancestors who toiled on the soil" but the seemingly traditional lunch was actually "an invention of the contemporary advertising and catering trades." I've enjoyed quite a few ploughman's lunches, and I never knew that.
Posted: Sun Dec 07, 2003.   Comments (1)

Trophy Turkey — turkeyIt turns out that the turkey President Bush was proudly holding on his recent visit with the troops in Iraq wasn't for eating. It's what's known as a 'Trophy Turkey': one that is just for decoration, not for consumption. I guess it wouldn't have looked as good for the cameras for Bush to walk around holding the slices of processed turkey meat that the soldiers really got.
Posted: Thu Dec 04, 2003.   Comments (0)

The Great Chili Scandal — People are up in arms about the Great Chili Scandal. The scandal occurred at the 37th annual Original Terlingua International Frank X. Tolbert-Wick Fowler Memorial Championship Chili Cook-Off, which is like the superbowl of Chili Cook-offs. Don Eastep won first place this year. Problem is that Don hadn't actually cooked any of his own chili. His brother Terry had dropped out of the contest at the last minute, so Don posed as his brother and took his place. But instead of cooking something of his own, Don simply walked around and took one spoonful of chili from each of the 80 contestants. Then he mixed these eighty spoonfuls together in a bowl and handed that in as his entry. Much to his surprise, he won first place. He immediately admitted what he had done, and the trophy was taken away. But everyone is still riled up about the whole thing. They're calling Don a 'chili terrorist.'
Posted: Mon Nov 17, 2003.   Comments (0)

Condom in the Clam Chowder — This woman claims that she was happily eating her clam chowder at a restaurant in Irvine, CA when to her horror she discovered a condom floating in it. Actually, she discovered the condom by biting down on it. Incessant vomiting followed. The restaurant, meanwhile, is denying any responsibility, so the woman has filed a lawsuit, which will commence Jan. 12, 2004. It seems obvious that someone is lying here, but it's basically the woman's word against the word of the restaurant managers.
Posted: Wed Nov 12, 2003.   Comments (0)

Mint Rubbing — Check out the wonders of the Romanian Mint Rubbing Association. (Thanks to t.m.Enzo for the link).
Posted: Tue Oct 21, 2003.   Comments (1)

Edible Outdoor Gear — Here's a strange hoax website (sent in by Stuart Jacobson). It's Eastern Active Technologies (EAT), retailers of edible outdoor gear and equipment. Now when you set off on a weekend hiking trip, laden down with tent, sleeping bag, and backpack, you can return completely empty handed... and well fed.
Posted: Thu Sep 25, 2003.   Comments (0)

Ninja Burger — Ninja Burger: The world's predominant undergound ninja-run fast food delivery service
Posted: Thu Sep 18, 2003.   Comments (1)

Dehydrated Water — Buy Dehydrated Water: It's compact, lightweight, and easy to store
Posted: Thu Sep 18, 2003.   Comments (0)

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