Marketing Madness

March 22, 2022

Written by: David Callari, Owner RPM Nutrition: NASM-CPT, PN1

When you go into a supermarket, some of what we are bombarded with can be overwhelming. We’ve all seen the buzzwords and phrases…”Made with Cauliflower”, NON GMO water, Grass Fed Salmon…the list goes on and on…but are some of these companies doing the right thing? Or is their marketing and packaging team just a bunch of idiots screwing around in a room asking each other “how can we make a buck?” Let’s take a look…

Let's analyze our "fitness cauliflower" product

1. Cauliflower crust pot pie

Here we have the infamous “cauliflower crust”. Immediately makes the product lower calorie, healthier, and all around aura enhancing right?

Not so fast Turbo.

2. Nutrition

Turn that single serve pot pie around and we see it has a WHOPPING 810 calories, 40g of fat, 86g of carbs, and 26g of protein.

That’s awfully hefty!!. It’s approx. 40% of your standard 2,000k/cal suggested daily intake.

To take this buffoonery even further and make even less sense than a screen door on a submarine is a crust made with cauliflower AND wheat. Like WTF…if you happen to be gluten-free, normally cauliflower products could be a decent option for you, but not here. It’s as if the product designers have no idea what they are doing.

3. The Equalizer

The Banquet pot pie gives this some context. You can have TWO OF THESE (to match the total serving size of the cauliflower one) and STILL be taking in less calories overall. Like what are we even doing here?

4. Cost

What’s annoying is when companies jump on a bandwagon to make money, giving zero f&*ks in regards to proper application. So at Target the cauliflower pie will cost you $2.99 USD. At the same Target 2 regular pies will run you $1.98 USD. Friggin $1 LESS expensive. Unless you have a VERY SPECIFIC need for specialty foods or ingredients, overpaying for nonsense doesn’t make a lot of sense for your diet or wallet.

5. The Takehome

When you’re trying to make better lifestyle choices and improve your diet, these types of marketing tricks can easily derail your progress and choices, if you don’t know how to properly read labels and are easily enticed by slick marketing buzzwords. It’s always best to know the context that some of these ingredients or marketing terms are used in and if they pertain at all to you. More often than not, they won’t at all. Make sure you take the time and educate yourself on what’s out there and how to sniff out the BS from the real thing!