Here at lovefood we're sent a plethora of press releases every day, shouting about the latest kitchen gadget, or who's eating what. Sometimes they lead to stories, but other times they're just plain daft. Here are the top five most ridiculous press releases we were sent this year.
#1: Mark World Toilet Day with a bottle of Belu Water
Umm… what? There’s a World Toilet Day? Yes siree, and it’s on November 19 every year. It’s designed to ‘break the taboo around toilets and draw attention to the global sanitation challenge…’ Sounds like a worthy cause, but why on earth would we, a food publication, need to know about it? Well, apparently we should have marked World Toilet Day by buying a bottle of Belu, ‘the UK’s most ethical water brand’. Alas the link was too tenuous for us to write anything.
#2: Morning sickness remedies fit for a queen
Oh they worked quickly with this one. No sooner had Kate Middleton been rushed to hospital with severe morning sickness, than this press release dropped into our inbox. I think it was a turnaround of less than two hours. ‘Ginger is widely used as an anti-nausea remedy,’ they write, ‘and coupled with lemongrass it makes an unbeatable team against stomach discomfort’. Enter the product: Dr Stuart’s Ginger & Lemongrass tea bags. Oh well, at least someone got something out of the whole grizzly affair.
#3 Housebites adds a little loving to your takeaway with ‘ready-made’ dates
Perhaps the most depressing press release I have ever read. Housebites.com, a new takeaway service, ‘has revealed a unique new twist’ whereby customers ordering meals for two can ‘add an element of romance to their order’ at the checkout… instead of ordering extra mushrooms, add a candle, some chocolates, or a personalised ‘I love you’ card. Gag. Who on earth associates takeaways with romance? People will be proposing over chicken korma next.
#4 Love food, hate bloating?
‘I just wanted to get in touch to see if you’re planning any anti-bloating features in the run up to Christmas?’, writes the PR lady. The thought had never crossed our mind – perhaps because the whole point of Christmas is to eat until you feel fit to burst. We have Rennie on hand in the Morgan household, but would never go to the extreme of taking Nature’s Plus ‘GI Natural’ capsules, which encourage a ‘healthy GI mucosal lining’ and contain fibre to ‘cleanse and rejuvenate the large intestine’. Ewww, that’s put me right off my turkey.
#5 Christmas Day now second most popular salad eating occasion
Sorry, but I simply refuse to believe this. Who eats salad on Christmas Day? Maybe, at all the Christmas dinners I've enjoyed, I missed the big bowl of iceberg lettuce hiding behind the roast potatoes. But Lasting Leaf salads insists: more people than ever are eating salads in winter – ‘with sales peaking on Christmas Day’. I didn’t know that the supermarkets were open on Christmas day?
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