Stouffer's Thinks You're Stupid!

Well, I can't find a video of the recent Stouffer's Lasagna ad, in which a family which has made changes in its lifestyle is forced to have Stouffer's frozen lasagna for supper instead of eating out all the time (apparently). In this ad, the voice-over claims with great enthusiasm that Stouffer's Lasagna is made of, get this, "REAL INGREDIENTS!"

Is this their selling point? Wait, what? My kids made a mud-pie recently, and it, too, was made of REAL INGREDIENTS! Did that make it edible? I think not. I cooked up a copper sulfate crystal in my high school chemistry class many years ago and it was also made of REAL INGREDIENTS! I still didn't eat it, and would not recommend that anyone do so.*

Can someone at Stouffer's please define UNREAL ingredients for me? I really would like to know what that means. My mind conjures up visions of me trying to serve up to my family the tea and crumpets The Princess served at her most recent tea party. These treats actually were made of unreal ingredients and because of that, they DIDN'T ACTUALLY EXIST, except in our imaginations. Surely Stouffer's is not insinuating that parents are serving imaginary foods to their families? Or maybe they just think we're stupid.

Perhaps some ad exec working for Stouffer's is a closet solipsist - unless the ingredients are right there in front of him or her, they don't exist! But that won't work, either, since the ad exec cannot possibly be present each time a parent serves Stouffer's frozen lasagna, so all lasagnas, excluding the one on the exec's plate, would be made of UNREAL INGREDIENTS, and would not exist.

It appears Stouffer's thinks we're stupid.

I seem to be writing lots of posts about crap I see in ads lately. Sorry. Apparently my sensitivity level to ridiculous and stupid garbage is set pretty low right now.

* - in that same chemistry class, we followed a set of directions for an experiment that led to delicious, delicious peanut brittle (such and such grams of sucrose, such and such grams of "protein pellets", such and such level of heat for such and such amount of time, etc.), which we DID eat, and were graded on its consistency and flavor. Also, summer school for chemistry, until the board of directors put the kibosh on it, included an experiment that led to BEER (yes, it was a LONG time ago). Cooking IS chemistry! And everything is made of REAL INGREDIENTS!