1774: Adjective Foods

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Adjective Foods

Title text: Contains 100% of your recommended daily allowance!

Explanation

This comic shows one of Randall’s goals in life – creating foods with "adjective-only" names, where common phrases such as "glazed donuts" or "lite beer" would be replaced with "glazed" or "lite". This is a jab at food market buzzwords, which usually rely on adjectives and words that bring up certain feelings based on how the food is "supposed to be". An example of this is something like "lean and tender beef". It is also semi-difficult to determine the actual contents just by adjectives, or if there are any contents besides adjectives.

A recommended daily allowance is a comparison often found in the nutritional information on food labels which compare the amount of macronutrients, vitamins and minerals to a prescribed general standard amount a representative average person is deemed to require in their daily diet.

The title text may be suggesting facetiously that the foods contain 100% of the recommended daily allowance of adjectives (given the high quantity of them in the product names). Obviously, adjectives are not a nutrient the human body needs that would normally be subject of a nutritional chart. Alternatively, this may be a continuation of the main joke, in that Randall has removed the subject of the phrase "recommended daily allowance of [subject]", leaving only the first half of the phrase.

This joke is very similar to comic 1060, Crowdsourcing, in that Randall is doing nothing, and trying to make it look like he is doing something. It expresses the opposite idea from comic 993, Brand Identity.

Transcript

[An arrangement of labeled foodstuffs, from left to right and top to bottom:]

Premium Stone-ground Bespoke, Cage-free

Gourmet Fire-roasted Glazed flambé

Organic All-natural Locally-sourced Artisanal, Kosher, Grade A

Craft Barrel-aged Smoked Authentic Homemade Sun-dried Whole Extra Sharp

Low-calorie Lite Original Flavor

[Caption:] I'm trying to trick supermarkets into carrying my new line of adjective-only foods.

Trivia

• The word “artisanal” was originally misspelled as “artisenal”.
  • The wrong spelling is found here.

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Discussion

Nobody has edited since I started this? Wow. I must have been early. That's right, Jacky720 just signed this (talk | contribs) 15:23, 19 December 2016 (UTC)

Nice to see somebody helping out! Thanks! That's right, Jacky720 just signed this (talk | contribs) 15:41, 19 December 2016 (UTC)

This looks just like all the food in my supermarket. I'm not even sure if I'm buying food or the best adjectives sometimes XD While most people have mass on Saturday, I have mine relative to my inertia (talk) 15:59, 19 December 2016 (UTC)

The can of Lite is a real thing, of course, and trademarked, which is why other beers can call themselves "light" but not "Lite". This article has more on that. 162.158.75.4 16:05, 19 December 2016 (UTC) I thought Lite could be a name for a drink itself, and then i found you. Cool.

Italics is totally fine, and Glazed and Lite are in white. That's right, Jacky720 just signed this (talk | contribs) 16:13, 19 December 2016 (UTC)

First off, I would like to apologize, my reason for changing the text to normal could be seen as inflammatory, and that was not my intention. As for my actual reason, it's that while you may be able to read it fine, many people can't read text like that. In the comic, it's large and capital letters, but the wiki has small text. Adding all that guff makes it hard to read. For example, my mom has awful eyes, and text like that would be virtually unreadable to her. It was not for my sake, but rather for the sake of others. While most people have mass on Saturday, I have mine relative to my inertia (talk) 16:18, 19 December 2016 (UTC)

It's not hard to increase the font size on a computer -- just ctrl and + (or ctrl and =). ctrl and - to turn it back down. The transcript is mainly there for search engines anyway, I imagine; after all, the comic is directly above it on the same page.108.162.237.178 17:29, 19 December 2016 (UTC)

it isn't hard to increase font size, but that's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about how busy the text is. There is no reason for it to have that much. It distracts from the real purpose and decreases readability. Also, they want it edited as well. Note the box above the transcript about format. This is not about you. It needs to change for other people who cannot read this stuff as well. What makes you think everyone knows how to increase font size? I honestly didn't until now. You need to do something about it, I'll do it for you, which you may not like.While most people have mass on Saturday, I have mine relative to my inertia (talk) 17:48, 19 December 2016 (UTC)

Is "artisenal" even a word? Is that a purposeful misspelling of "artisanal"? (Like "lite" is a purposeful misspelling of "light".) Imperpay (talk) 16:42, 19 December 2016 (UTC)

The "artisenal" error has now been fixed in the updated comic. [1]. --Esterhazy (talk) 17:42, 19 December 2016 (UTC)

The 'p' by a "kosher mark" indicates that it is kosher for Passover. It will say 'pareve' outright if the food is pareve. --Hamotron172.68.54.28 18:24, 19 December 2016 (UTC)

Who cares what foods might be in each of the packages? It has nothing to do with the comic and are generally speculation anyway. I'd disagree with most of what's written, but it doesn't matter. I would argue for removing the entire table/section. SeanAhern (talk) 18:58, 19 December 2016 (UTC)

I'd generally agree. If we are to list them, the 'sack' should probably designate it as 'Flour or meal,' as cereals are sometimes steel-cut, but not usually stone-ground, and stone-ground wheat is flour. Also, while there are lots of kosher foods here, I've never seen kosher eggs. Rule seems to be it must come from a live kosher chicken, but I think all chickens are kosher while they are alive, & 'kosher chicken' refers to the manner of their slaughter. Miamiclay (talk) 23:07, 19 December 2016 (UTC)

I don't think you are meant to be able to tell what is in the package as some of it makes no sense. Why would "cage free" be applied to flour or wheat? That is typically applied to chickens and their eggs to indicate the chicken/hen isn't trapped in a cage. But I have never heard of someone grinding a chicken. The only thing I can think of all those adjectives actually referring to would be ground up chicken such as for fertilisers. I think it is just a collection of adjectives which make no sense.108.162.249.160 00:00, 20 December 2016 (UTC)

I do agree that there is no sense speculating about the contents of the packages with regard to the comic, but as an aside, I just have to comment that I routinely grind chickens to feed my cats! L-Space Traveler (talk) 23:41, 20 July 2023 (UTC)

Hear, hear; in fact I think the explanation should note that part of the joke is that no product could be described as cage free and stone-ground. similarly, fire-roasted and flambé are inconsistent. Also, smoked, sun-dried, and barrel-aged are very nearly mutually inconsistent. 162.158.79.29 01:41, 20 December 2016 (UTC)

Disagree, fois gras could be made from cage free ducks and then ground with stone implements. 108.162.221.64 14:36, 20 December 2016 (UTC)

It could refer to some baked good that uses stone-ground flour and eggs from cage-free chickens.172.68.46.5 17:05, 20 December 2016 (UTC)

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This is the opposite of 993: Brand Identity. 162.158.62.75 (talk) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

"Stune-ground" might reffer to a "Ground stone" so its probably Flour. (PS hope i edit this correctly) 172.68.34.106 (talk) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

Lite

The contents of the Lite can could also be soda, as it's well possible to produce a lite soda (though I don't think anyone has). 172.68.34.106 (talk) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

Coca Cola has a Lite variety, so it certainly could be. 141.101.104.219 14:10, 20 December 2016 (UTC)

Original flavor

'Original flavor' actually isn't a noun phrase (in context). It's an adjectival phrase, which is why Randall has used it as he has. I'd suggest deleting this sentence in the explanation. 141.101.98.162 (talk) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

Trivia

The link in the trivia section seems to point to the current comic image, not the older version.---- 108.162.219.100 (talk) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

Is it just me or is "original flavor" not an adjective? It seems to act as a noun, "flavor", being modified by an adjective "original", not as a phrase. 108.162.215.88 21:18, 22 December 2016 (UTC)

It's hard to read it as a noun phrase in context. In another context it could be, for example if a soda-can were a likely container for flavoring. Here it reads most naturally as an adjectival phrase: imagine 'Original flavor Coca Cola'. 141.101.107.126 05:47, 23 December 2016 (UTC)Adam

Randall has been partially successful. I can walk into my local grocery and purchase packages of "loaf" and "spread", and bottles of "drink" These Are Not The Comments You Are Looking For (talk)

OSASCOMP

At first glance not all of these adjective orderings look natural. Has anyone checked? Opinion, size, age, shape, color, origin, material, purpose. — tbc (talk) 15:09, 23 December 2016 (UTC)

I’m disappointed in myself. I thought the product was called bespoke.... Netherin5 (talk) 14:02, 21 March 2019 (UTC)

Authentic

I fairly regularly pass a road-side advert for something like "Authentic New York-style bagels" (though admittedly not regularly enough to be totally sure it's actually bagels, rather than pizza/whatever). I'm not anywhere near New York (much, much closer to the old York!), but the "-style" does so easily allow the "Authentic" to swap its actual meaning from something like "genuine" (which may be desirable, but also would mean correct usage being enforcable) to "copy" (which renders it meaningless either as an attraction or as regulator-bait that might provoke advertising standards prosecutions). So, without actually telling lies, they're attempting to evoke some mythical/illusiary status. Though I've no real idea what makes a bagel(/whatever) New York-style, anyway, so I really don't think I'd be able to identify 'inauthentic' ones either, except maybe containing less weasel... 172.70.86.73 00:17, 21 July 2023 (UTC)