GMM 2144: Frozen Food Ads vs. Real Life Food (Test)

What do frozen meals look like with #NoFilter? – Let’s talk about that. (gentle upbeat music) – Good Mythical Morning. – And welcome to the beginning of our spring break! – Spring break. – All that really means is that we’re gonna be releasing episodes on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday for the next three weeks and then returning to our normal schedule of five times a week on April 18th, but hey! It’s spring break! You seem upset. – Well, I am upset, Rhett. I’m upset about all those frozen meal companies whose packaging makes us think that their food is fit for a king, but inside, it’s really nothing but a bunch of mush meant for goblins! You shall face our wrath! – I feel like you need to chill out. Get it? Chill. Frozen food. Spring break! – You’re right, Rhett. Spring break! Today, in the name of truth in honor, we’re gonna make some lying frozen food packaging wish it had never been born or frozen. – It’s time for “You’re Telling Me the Frozen Food Boxes are Liars? Oh Man, That Means All Their Pants are on Fire. Medic!” – We don’t have a medic! – (laughs) We do sometimes. – Today, we’re gonna be presented with a frozen food and it’s gonna be the box. We’re gonna look at that box. – Yeah. – And then we’re gonna set our expectations according to the box, like everybody should do, right? Marketing, but then we’re gonna whizz out the actual prepared dish and compare it. – Whizz it. We’re gonna whizz it right out. – And something tells me we might be disappointed, but we might not not be disappointed. – We’re gonna rank each one on a scale of 10, each one of us, and we’re gonna taste it. If it tastes pretty good, we might give it a extra point. – Yeah. – But if it tastes bad, we might take off a point from our score. – Yeah. And then we’re gonna be dolling out some advice to the makers of the lowest scoring meal and we’ll even give that box of fresh coat of paint. – Let’s get to viewing and chewing. (gentle upbeat music) – [Stevie] First up, you’ve got Hungry-Man Selects Mexican Style Fiesta, which includes beef enchiladas smothered in chili sauce and cheese with Mexican style rice and authentic refried beans, as well as cocada pudding, which is coconut flavored. – Cocada? – That pudding. That’s an interesting addition. – Wow. – Hungry-Man gotta get his dessert in, even if it’s something surprising like cocada pudding. – I thought that was just something they added to the picture. I didn’t think I was gonna see it under this thing. It’s gonna be pretty under there. – Well, of course, we know it’s not gonna be on this black plate, but I mean, this looks freaking like a Mexican restaurant. – Yeah, like Chi-Chi’s. (laughs) – Here we go, baby. There it is. – Okay. (crew laughing) All right. It’s leaving a little bit to be desired. – Well, one thing is the rice. Where’s the rice, dude? – [Rhett] The rice is underneath all this sauce, I have to assume. – [Link] I’ve got like a earthquake crack in my enchilada. – One of the things that, it’s just such a difficult thing to judge because you know that they can’t make it do this. Like, this is obviously, they made some enchiladas and then they spoon the sauce and they melted the cheese. You actually can’t package it in that way, but you are setting that expectation. You’re setting that expectation. – [Stevie] I’m confused. Can you clarify? The pudding in the main situation? You put it in a microwave or oven, right? – Microwave. – You put it in that microwave. – [Stevie] You put it in the microwave and- – It’s microwaved pudding, yeah. – [Stevie] Yeah, so the pudding goes with it. – It’s hot pudding, girl! – [Link] The rice. I did find some of it. – There’s beans. I will be trying those on their own. – Pretty bland. You like those beans? They’re hurting. – [Rhett] Actually, the beans are the highlight so far. What about this hot pudding? – All right, Stevie. We’re about to go in on the hot pudding. – Oh. – [Stevie] Is it currently hot? – Yes. – It’s warm. – [Stevie] Ew! – That tastes like something you’d wax your car with. – Yeah. – Cocada! – Yeah, it doesn’t taste great. It’s a nasty custard. – I am able to tell that. I wouldn’t think that I had made the wrong decision. I wouldn’t think that, oh, they put the wrong meal in here. Like, I see two enchiladas. I see sauce and cheese. I see the pudding, but I don’t see it in a way that represents this. I just think this is a solid five for me. Just kind of middle of the road, what you would expect with a frozen dinner and it doesn’t taste bad enough or good enough for me to go off of five. – I agree that I’m not giving it a bonus or a detractor in terms of the taste. Yeah, you’re right. This is right down the middle. Just a nice five. – Five times two is 10. (gentle upbeat music) – [Stevie] Okay, this next dish is Healthy Choice Simply Steamers Beef Chimichurri and it features a hundred percent natural tender beef strips, potatoes, green beans, and red bell peppers, all tossed in a chimichurri sauce. – That is a tempting looking box top. – It feels like something you might be able to replicate, though. You know what I’m saying? There’s not a bunch of sauce and there’s not melted cheese. It’s just meat and vegetables and a sauce. – Right. We can mix it up and kind of give it a toss. – Give it a toss. – We can give it a toss to see. Give it a chimichurri toss. – Oh, okay. – The meat. That is the first thing that I’m looking at. – [Rhett] Mine is like it’s been desaturated. – The meat does have some of that green stuff on it, though. – Yeah, but the meat has a jerky-like quality to it. – Yeah. – In reality, where- – Hey, let’s give it a toss. – Give it a toss. – That didn’t work. Let’s give it a stir. – Sort of stuck together. Man, the expectations were really set high. – [Link] This is healthy. – All the individual pieces. Well, here’s another complaint. I’m lodging complaints now. The peppers are really, really, much chopped compared to the ones on there, which are a little bit longer. That’s a little bit of a demerit. – We got a lot of- – The sauce at the bottom, though. That chimichurri was camping out of the bottom. – Lot of veggie shrivel happening here. Let’s getting a nice taste. I’ve got everything in one bite. Not bad. Chimichurri is a little bit spicy. – Kind of tasty. – [Link] A little bit sweet. – And this is an interesting little fun fact about Healthy Choice. So in 1985, their CEO actually suffered a heart attack and they decided that it was time to make a change, so they started working with the FDA to create a set of standards that foods must meet in order to be called healthy. – Oh. – And now they say, “Today we remain the only major brand in the frozen meals category that can proudly call all of its food healthy.” – Yeah, that’s a bold claim. It’s not bad. – [Rhett] Once I gave it a stir, it brought it to life a little bit. – I’m almost tempted to give it an extra point. – I am giving it an extra point. – Whoa! – And the point that I’m starting with, again, it’s a little bit. – I’ve got my number. – It’s got a head start because of the nature of it, but even with the desat, I’m going all the way to a seven and I’ve add an extra point for a total of eight. – I agree. I’m also giving it a seven. I’m not gonna give it an extra point, but way to go, Healthy Choice. That’s a total of 15. Oh! (gentle upbeat music) Hey, big announcement. We’ve been waiting a long time to make this announcement. – Yes. – And this is it right now. Sometimes you’re like, when are we gonna be able to talk about it? It’s right now. – It’s happening. – Okay? We’ve been working on an all new project. It is live. It is called sporked.com. It’s a new website that’s all about finding the best packaged foods and just knowing what to buy and what to eat. – Now, the reason that we did this is because we’ve been tasting and ranking all this stuff on this show for so long. – Yeah. – That we started finding that there were those of you out there who would get to the grocery store because you would talk about this, whether you tweeted about it or you just commented on one of the videos and you’re like, “I find myself in the grocery store and I’m trying to figure out, what’s the best ice cream?” – Yeah, yeah. – Or what’s the best hot dog bun? I think Rhett and Link talked about this. – Spaghetti sauce. – And then you find yourself going onto the internet and trying to find that. I’ve actually done it. I’ve been in the grocery store and thought to myself, what did I say the best pickles were? – Beef jerky? – And I’m like, I know I’ve already done this, so let me go find that episode. We decided to take all that crazy work out. – So crazy. – And put it into an actual one place, one tool, one website where you can go to get all that information in one place and that’s sporked.com. – Yeah and like I said, we’ve been working behind the scenes dreaming this thing up and also kind of not only building a site, but assembling a team. – [Rhett] Yeah. – Like our own little Avengers of sporked team that can give their expert opinions, along with ours and other Mythical crew members, on all types of stuff. So we’re using the catchphrase, “Where tastes are tested.” – Because we’ve tasted a lot of stuff on this show, but we haven’t tasted everything. – Right. – So that’s the Sporked team’s job is to go well beyond everything that we’ve tasted. So they’re a team that’s tasting, they’re also getting some of the Mythical crew to taste. So I think the actual tasting opinions are gonna be not just a higher quantity, but a higher quality, nothing against your taste buds. – Or yours. – Yeah, right. I mean, but there’s only two of us, right? – But there’s kind of like this, there’s a personality quotient that we’ve infused into this thing. So it’s an entertainment quotient, of course. It’s fun. We want you to get to know that team. Matter of fact, a couple of members are gonna be in Good Mythical More today. So we want you to get to know them. – And you can also, they’ve got their own TikTok and Instagram, where you can go and see some of those behind the scenes of the tasting as it is done, get to know the team a little bit better. sporked.com. – Sporked.com. – [Both] sporked.com. (cloches banging) – Sporked dot- – Com. – Sporked. – Com. – Sporked. – Dot. – Com. (crew laughing) – Stevie. – [Stevie] Okay, next, we have Sweet Earth General Tso’s tofu. – General Tso’s, you said. – [Stevie] Is that not right? – I usually say Tso, but I really don’t know. – [Stevie] Anyone? They’ll correct us in the comments. It’s fine. – I’m like, general T-S-O. – [Stevie] It’s a vegan meal made with organic broccoli. – Veeg-an. (Stevie laughs) – Or veg-an, like my mom said one time. – Really? – Stevie And brown rice, paired with a sweet and sour sauce over crisp tofu. – Tofu. – The word crisp really got me. It’s like, that can’t be true. That can’t be the reality. – [Stevie] No, I think you pronounce it crisp. – You think that it’s not crispy? – It ain’t gonna be crisp in here. – Again, it’s a bowl formation. – It looks nice. – Now, everything is nicely separated into three different parts. The chicken, the rice and the broccoli. Let’s see what actually happened in reality, (Rhett and Link yelling) (Rhett retching) – (laughs) I’m sorry. – It looks like soggy croutons. – [Rhett] It’s not as mad as I made it. – [Link] Soggy crotons, man. – [Rhett] Guys. – Oh, my. The rice is under. Oh, my gosh. This is like- – [Rhett] It’s just a disc. You can just pick it up at will. – Yeah, I just want to illustrate. The disc nature of this thing. – It’s not very good, either. – I’m gonna do this again. See? Exactly what I said. – You know what? They fooled me because I was saying chicken. It’s tofu. It’s crisp tofu. It’s not chicken, but. – [Link] Is it crisp? – Not at all. I mean maybe on one little corner. – It’s not as soggy as it looks. It tastes pretty good. It’s really sweet. Actually, I think this is the best thing I’ve eaten today. – Well, I don’t. I’m not gonna take away a point, though. I don’t think it’s bad enough to take away a point, but I mean, that was such. It was so disappointing when I took the cloche off. – Yeah. (laughs) – I’m gonna give it a two. – I’m gonna give it a two, as well, and I’m gonna add a point because I think it tastes really good, especially after I saw how nasty it looks. – [Rhett] Okay. – That’s three plus two is- – [Both] Five! (gentle upbeat music) – [Stevie] This next meal is Boston Market’s Philly Cheese Steak Bowl with seasoned rice and vegetables. Inside, you’ll find tender sliced beef steak, stacked on seasoned rice with onions and bell peppers, topped with a creamy provolone cheese sauce. – Now, in principle, I’m intrigued, but here’s an observation. – How? – Just, I don’t know. A Philly cheese steak bowl? – Yeah. – Is intriguing to me. – You’re falling for the bowl trend, huh? – But here’s the thing I don’t know that’s happened. I’m looking at the front cover of this thing and I would call this unappetizing. – Front cover. So that’s like an album to you. (laughs) – You know, the box. Does that look gross to you? I mean, look at that meat. That doesn’t- – It doesn’t look appetizing and it doesn’t look like I would expect, especially from a Philly cheese steak. So the expectations are set low. – [Link] They’re low. – I don’t know how to even score this. – Yeah. They’re lowering the expectations. Let’s see what happens. Oh, my God! (Rhett laughing) What in the world? – Look at that. I mean, look at that. – [Link] Oh, my gosh. – How? How does this happen? – Nothing. And it’s immovable. – [Rhett] I could go to the drum circle on a Saturday night. (Rhett and Link hitting bowls) – [Stevie] sporked.com. – sporked.com. And then I just turned it over and it’s the same. Mom, I went to the drum circle. I took my Boston Market philly cheese bowl. (Link stammering) – Well, if you go hard enough, you know? – It did work. It did come out. – You can get it outta the bowl, if you go hard enough. Put that on the box. – [Link] Okay. – Oh, hey. It smells nice. – [Link] Oh, hey. – Oh, hey. – Oh, hey. Get a little bit of that red pepper. – That’s the best tasting thing that I’ve had. I give it a point. – The cheesy rice tastes like a Rice-A-Roni. The meat’s not bad, either. – [Rhett] You like it? – [Link] It’s kind of growing on me. – This is worse than the last one. I’m giving it a one in appearance. I turned it upside down and did a drum thing on it and it stayed in there. – Yeah. – I wanna give it two points for taste. Can I do that? – Yeah, sure. I’m gonna give it a point, as well. – Two points. – I’m gonna give it an additional point for taste. My expectations were low. They were under, it under-delivered and then over performed. – I’m giving it two extra points, which is not even legal, but that brings us to a total of five. – [Link] Five. (gentle upbeat music) – [Stevie] And finally, we have Marie Callender’s Beef Shepherd’s Pie. This dish is made with seasoned beef, carrots, and corn in a rich, savory gravy, all topped with mashed potatoes. – Okay, and by the looks of this, it’s two-thirds mashed potatoes. – Well, and also, I think this is just pulling back the sheath, the covering of mashed potatoes. So I would expect when you take this off, you’re gonna have straight mashed potatoes all over the top. – Oh, okay. I see what you mean. – That’s how- – Shepherd’s pie. – Shepherd’s pie. – Okay, I get it. I get it, I get it. Good old Marie, trying to pull one over on me. – Oh, Marie just wants to show you what’s inside. – I’m ready for it. (Link mimicking whooshing) – Okay. All right. – Oh, gosh. That is a sad outcome. Good. This is like a cesspool. – [Rhett] Oh, gosh. Look what just happened. It’s just a big- – [Link] Meatball. – I can’t believe I’m complaining about it. – I like the fact that there’s a lot of meat, but- – What if I just mix it all? – But then that’s not a Shepherd’s pie. You wanna rake the taters onto the side. – Too late. – And then you want mix this up and then want to be able to put the taters back over it or something. All right, we’re gonna try to taste it because… – Now, Marie usually brings the taste. – This is not bad. – [Rhett] It’s not great, though. – This is not good. – I thought this was gonna be a one or two point edition, but it’s not. – And it’s ugly! I bet Marie’s not happy right now. Sorry, Marie. We’re just, you know? We do our job. You do yours. – Marie, I’m sorry. I’m moving you all the way to a one and I’m not giving you an additional point. – Yeah. I give it a one, as well. – [Rhett] Oh, my gosh. – That’s deuces, Marie. – And that means that Marie, you’re the one. You’re the loser. – You’re the one. – You’re the one. The one loser for today. – But we wanna give some constructive criticism, you know? Just to help improve your Shepherd’s pie. – Just a fresh coat of paint. – [Link] Let’s just give you a fresh coat of paint. – A little coat of paint. – [Stevie] Guys, you know, I don’t mean to crush the mood. Marie is no longer with us. – Oh, gosh. Now, she’s gonna haunt us. – [Stevie] Yeah. You know, maybe just go a little bit easy on her. – Marie, we’re sorry. When did she? What year did she die? – [Stevie] It like middle-90s. – Oh, okay. – [Stevie] It’s been a minute. – I think her ghost has probably worked some things out in the afterlife and maybe gone on to the great beyond at this point, so. – She was 88 years old. – I’m not taking anything back, Marie. You lived a great life. – There you go. Just spilling our entrails right out on the desk. (crew laughing) Thanks for subscribing and clicking that bell. – You know what time. – My name’s Erin. We’re in Favel, Arkansas. This is our snowman and it’s time- – [All] To spin the Wheel of Mythicality! – When it snows in Favel, Arkansas, you better make a snowman because it ain’t gonna last long. Click the top link to watch us rank the sexiest cereal mascots with the Sporks crew and the Mythical Kitchen crew in Good Mythical More. – And to find out where the Wheel of Mythicality is gonna land. Looking for the best frozen lasagna, the best spicy chip, or even the best canned sardine? Check out sporked.com, Mythical’s new website where tastes are tested.

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