Nutella. We all love it, especially on pretzel sticks. But a great deal of its popularity is based on a lie: Nutella is nutritious. Along with those famous 52 hazelnuts per 400g jar, there are also 60 teaspoons of sugar. One blogger refers to the stuff as "spreadable candy." In this ad, as in our reading, it talks about "energy" rather than "calories." They mean the same thing. Although it is made from "all natural ingredients" (which is also explained in the reading as not saying very much at all), the vast majority of that is natural sugar and vegetable oil. Chocolate icing is better for your kids than Nutella is. When something as delicious as Nutella claims that it is also nutritious, our "too good to be true" reflexes should kick in. There's nothing wrong with having it around as a sugary snack, but it should be more honest in its advertising.
In fact, Nutella has been involved in a number of legal battles over its false ads, and plaintiffs have won millions. Of jars of Nutella! But seriously, they've won a lot of money.
This ad is a very similar format to the first one. Nutella can be a good part of your child's balanced breakfast, and they'll gobble it up too, 'cause it's so darn tasty! Seems like our definition of "balanced breakfast" must've really gone downhill in recent years... The ingredients listed in this ad, hazelnuts, skim milk and cocoa, come after sugar and vegetable oil.
All this "hope," as we talked about in class, comes crashing down when one takes a critical eye to the claims made by Nutella. My first experience with Nutella was magical. I was with my girlfriend at the park with a picnic basket she had made up with PB&J sandwiches, drinks, pretzel sticks and Nutella. We could've been a Nutella commercial. When she pulled out the jar and told me about how Nutella was delicious AND nutritious, I was immediately spellbound. She had fallen for their ads and now, so had I. Every time I went to her house after that, I asked if they still had some that she and I could share. It was a while later that I learned the terrible truth.
We as human beings will believe anything that seems relatively plausible as long as it falls in line with what we want. When on the surface something that we want to be true seems like it is, we delve no further and accept what we are given, especially when we are given it by a beautiful girl, as in my case. We tend to ask more questions and have more reservations about things that aren't so happy. In this case, the hope of a delicious nutritious snack is too good to pass up for a large number of consumers.
I wish that we had so much faith in our Christian walks. "God is good and He will provide? But what about etc..." Faith like this in God, faith like a child, is the only object of such faith scripture identifies. We want things to be easy, and to be fun. In the case of Nutella, these criteria are met, so we let down our guard. But our walk with God isn't so easy, so we sometimes put our walls back up. The life God calls us to though, is a life of the kind of faith that sees an advertisement that says "Loving God and following His call for your life is both morally right AND will lead to fulfillment and satisfaction in life!" and believe it.
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