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Aug 07, 2023

Trader Joe’s Recalls Food Containing Rocks and Insects and Metal, Oh My

By Li Goldstein Welcome to Delicious or Distressing, where we rate recent food memes, videos, and other entertainment news. Last week we discussed Dunkin’s new spiked coffee drinks. Trader Joe’s is

By Li Goldstein

Welcome to Delicious or Distressing, where we rate recent food memes, videos, and other entertainment news. Last week we discussed Dunkin’s new spiked coffee drinks.

Trader Joe’s is having a tough run of it. The beloved grocery chain and unmatched savant in the snack game has seen five product recalls in a month. It’s alarming from a food safety perspective, and also probably from a PR perspective. Three products have been pulled from the shelves for maybe containing rocks, and another for maybe containing insects. Now, Trader Joe’s is recalling a variety of multigrain crackers for potentially containing metal. I can’t help but wonder: Where are these rocks coming from? And in what form? Personally, I’m needing more details.

Also this week, Fyre Festival—the subject of much mockery and ire in 2019—announced that it’s back for seconds. Pornhub is threatening to sue a kebab shop in New York City for allegedly copying its logo. Lastly, the Illinois State Fair has been duping us all along with its quote-unquote butter cow: The public was recently shocked to find out that the famous sculpture is mostly made of mesh wire, and only butter at the surface level, literally.

Here’s what’s happening in food moments on the internet this week.

For the fifth time in a month, Trader Joe’s has recalled yet another one of its products. There’ve been rocks in two cookie products. There’ve been rocks in falafel. There’ve been insects in broccoli cheddar soup. Joining the canon? Metal in multigrain crackers. What’s going on, babe? A recent Vox report suggests that Trader Joe’s business model—outsourcing often to local and artisanal producers—creates a margin of error with less centralized oversight mechanisms. TJ’s knack for culling a lineup of fun and funky snacks may come at a cost, apparently. In statements, Trader Joe’s said that the company sources only from facilities that abide by FDA and USDA standards, and that the recalls were a “result of issues in the manufacturing processes.” With all of this data in mind, I will certainly continue to shop at Trader Joe’s, because I love to live life on the edge. 2.3/5 distressing. —Li Goldstein, digital production assistant

Billy McFarland, the guy who created Fyre Festival, and then was sent to prison for creating Fyre Festival, announced he is reviving Fyre Festival. “It has been the absolute wildest journey to get here,” he says in a vertical video, “and it really all started during a seven-month stint in solitary confinement.” Where all good ideas start! Fellow haters may remember the single slice of cheese sandwiches at the first and most chaotic version of Fyre Festival in 2017—I guess what I’m saying is, it would be hard to do a worse job at essentially every aspect of a festival so the only way is up! My predictions for Fyre Festival’s second round: two slices of cheese, perhaps a single cornichon on the side, and maybe guests will even be upgraded from styrofoam boxes to, I don’t know, paper plates? If you’re prepared to pay for the $499 tickets, maybe you can let me know how it goes. I, for one, will be spending that kind of money on something more sensible, like wildly overpriced ceramics or perhaps a fancy little hat. I’m giving this news a slippery, slimy 5/5 distressing. —Sam Stone, staff writer

In a cease and desist letter obtained by the New York Post, Pornhub’s parent company threatens to sue the Döner Haus kebab shop in Manhattan, New York, if it doesn’t change its logo. In the letter, the porn site claims that the restaurant’s logo could confuse consumers and says the shop’s signage may ​​“misappropriate the goodwill of the Pornhub Trademarks.”

A spokesperson for the restaurant has said that they are “mind-boggled” why the media giant has targeted their shop. “We are in two completely different business sectors and we see no way how we can be confused with them,” they added, and I’m compelled to agree. I’ve walked past Döner Haus many times, and I’ve never had to ask myself, “Now why would PornHub open a kebab shop in the Village?” After all, people go to adult film websites and kebab shops at vastly different times, in vastly different moods, and for vastly different reasons. The shop’s branding reads, in my extremely-not-a-copyright-lawyer opinion, as an obvious parody, with its neon banners reading “Get Stuffed” and “Big Döner Energy.” In the words of the greatest legal argument of all time: “Your honor, it was a bit.” 1.1/5 distressing. —Alma “This is not legal advice” Avalle, digital production associate

It turns out that everyone’s favorite cow is full of, well, nothing actually. I’m talking about the Butter Cow, Illinois State Fair’s most beloved annual sculpture. Commissioned by the Midwest Dairy Association, big girl butter is a tradition dating back to the 1920s and unveiled each year to celebrate the state’s agricultural roots. This year artist Sarah Pratt created a daffodil yellow likeness of Illinois dairy farmer Lorilee Shultz milking one of her cows. That’s lovely! Except, unfortunately, spirits have since melted after fans learned that the sculpture is not in fact solid milk fat—but hunks of butter molded around a wire-mesh frame like papier-mâché.

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“If we cannot believe in butter cows, what can we believe in?” one person tweeted. I relate to the collective disappointment: This chicanery brings back haunting memories of first learning that my Cadbury milk chocolate Easter bunny was, in fact, hollow. I simply cannot believe it’s not butter!!! That’s a 4.1/5 distressing for the deceitful dairy queens. —Ali Francis, staff writer