Walkers Meaty Crisps - Suitable for Vegetarians

1984 George Orwell writes about manipulating people’s minds by using new words – Newspeak. Through this new language people come to believe whatever the Government told them to believe – yes, kind of brain washing. For example, they tell people that war has always been going between two countries, when in fact both of them were in alliance last week and in war with a third country…

My example is by far not this serious, hopefully we can trust our Government today – to some extent – and if they tell us that we are in war or in an alliance with another country, we would expect this to be true. My example is taken from the supermarkets. Today there seems to be an ongoing trend, if you can call it that, where more and more people turn away from meat to try living their lives as vegetarians. It is quite a healthy option, but I still don’t think I could manage a life without meat. People that I know of who are vegetarians do tend to agree that you forget about meat after a while, and quite happily reject eating it, not only due to animal rights reasons, but also because of the fact that they say they do not like the tastes after a while. It sounds similar to when you try to stop smoking, once you’ve managed to get rid of that last cigarette, you don’t want to feel, smell or taste it anymore. So therefore I was quite surprised seeing Walkers Meaty Crisps, Roast Chicken, Smoky Bacon and Steak & Onion, all being suitable for vegetarians. If what they say is correct, why would they want to choose crisps that taste like the one thing they have given up?

It is interesting how Walkers can print with massive letters all over the bag ‘MEATY’ and on the back of it refer to the crisps as ‘And there were potatoes of the ‘rarest’ quality that were selected for our mouth-wateringly meaty Steak & Onion flavour crisps’ – I know, it says flavour, but when I read that sentence I don’t see seasonings and herbs, I see meat juices. And wouldn’t that be healthier than trying to reproduce flavours from a powder that has no connection what so ever with the product it is supposed to taste like?

I know that this might not be classified as pure manipulation; it is written on the bag that it is flavoured crisps – but why have a big juicy headline saying ‘MEATY’ all over the bag? If I were a vegetarian, would I think ‘hmm these might be vegetarian steak crisps, let’s check out the fine print’? Most likely not. If I were a vegetarian and saw capital letters meat all over a product I would not give it a second look.

So question is, what does Walker want to achieve with such a product?