I think “natural” was determined in court to hold jo required quality, or be free from artificial, man-made or modified elements. So wholly opposite the standard meaning of the word.

They always come for language first.

“Because while the truncheon may be used in lieu of conversation, words will always retain their power. Words offer the means to meaning, and for those who will listen, the enunciation of truth.”

• “Zero calories” or 0 grams of [blank] in the nutrition information. The regulations let them round down if it’s less than 1 gram.

For example, take a look at the “Serving size” of some cooking spray. 1/3 of a second of spray means 0.25g… So everything is zeroed out in the Nutrition facts.

“Up to” in terms of anything. Up to inherently also contains zero.

In regards to free, I’ve found that a general rule of thumb is that the larger, the bolder, the more differently colored, the more drop shadows added, the shinier, or the more 3D looking the word “free” is, the less free it will actually turn out to be.

• “Zero calories” or 0 grams of [blank] in the nutrition information. The regulations let them round down if it’s less than 1 gram standard unit of measurement for that item (edited from grams).

A particularly egregious example is TicTacs, which are labeled as having 0 calories despite being almost pure sugar. The practice is also very common with alternative sweeteners, which have fewer calories than regular sugar but far from 0.

The “zero calories” is a US thing, in the EU manufacturers are required to show nutrition per 100g. They can add percentages and serving sizes if they want, but per 100g or 100ml is required, so you can calculate your own serving sizes easily.

Organic means grown without lab made pesticides and fertilizers.

Flavored dish soap is kinda wild in general. Yes, I want the things I eat and drink off of to all taste vaguely of chemical lemons.

The default should be plain soaps and plain dish detergent. Some are so potent that the scent sticks to the dishes even after washing, and unfortunately, the food too. Especially that dawn spray soap.

This is such bullshit manipulative marketing, similar to when companies will put out an ad saying something like “ONLY $1.99/MONTH” in large, bold letters and then below it have tiny fine print saying “for the first month, then $420.69/month”.

“Free of dyes. Soft pear scent.”. Boom. Done. Not only is it short, but it’s clear and accurate. Almost nobody cares if it’s “clear” as long as it’s dye-free.

that’s fucking infuriating

Huggies diapers fucking say “up to 100% leakproof” on the box.

I just want to see a picture of the face of the person that thought that was reasonable.

This extra insurance covers up to 100% of the costs!

Up to is probably my favourite marketing term. Removes up to 100% of lime. Could be 0, idk.

Funnily enough, my fiber provider advertised my internet speeds as “up to 600Mbit/s” and I get about 630 in practice.

It’s impossible for an ISP to guarantee speeds though, because it’s not just their connection that’s being used.

Do they use this to weasel out of reasonable expectations of connection quality? Yes, absolutely. But they also can’t do anything about the speed of the server you’re downloading from.

They must mean wheat starch or some other derivative where the gluten has been removed?

Amazon was just successfully sued because of the ads in Germany. It wasn’t legal in the first place to enable ads on the lowest tier.

I gave up sailing the high seas during the golden age of streaming. Unfortunately it has already come to an end with the majority of streaming services including ads for their highest tier.

I have wasted so much of my life on watching commercials, I refuse to waste anymore.

I do love GM’s “Supercruise” moniker. Accurate, and my introduction was during a CTS Blackwing commercial, so it was a great pairing.

Still disable it on rentals though.

“Supervised” lol

Former head chef who’s worked in restaurants and production kitchens here. I made food for both immediate consumption, and package and sale. Food safety regulations will differ by location, as I once worked where three different regional health authorities ovelapped, but this is generally false.

In a commercial kitchens we weren’t allowed to sell expired food. The “Best Before” date is different, since it’s related to taste/texture, determined through structured testing, best educated guesses and/or personal tasting.

We kept dated boxes of products to taste ourselves every month, but also sent products to a lab to determine if the ingredients degraded or grew enough bacteria in different storage conditions to make it dangerous to consume. One caveat is when product quality degrades faster than it becomes a health risk, sometimes by years. Or, in the case of hard candy, probably never. In that case, companies might pick the longest range of time the product’s been tested — and that’s why you might see expiry dates on things that shouldn’t go bad.

Best before dates are guidelines, expiry dates are rules.

In Australia they changed it so ISP’s have to say what the typical evening (peak congestion) speed is.