Lust and Gluttony in Food Advertising

Companies have always attempted to lure the consumer with temptation. When it comes to buying lingerie, they tempt them with lustful images and ideas. When it comes to food, they often give us an illusion of health when selling us unhealthy trash. The new trend I've come to realize is becoming more aggressive in this hypersexualized, deviant age is the merging of lust and gluttony in food advertisement. Lust and Glut have always been partners in crime and are often seen together in the occult or even pop culture. (See Gluttony and Lust from Fullmetal Alchemist below)

Lust consumes the consumer, hence makes the human lose track of himself and give in to bodily pleasure which comes with a reduction of disgust. Gluttony is the consumption of sin directly through food itself. St. Thomas Aquinas (dubbed 'My Grandpa' when I was doing by BAC in Theology :3) goes detail about sub-forms of Gluttony, which I find highly interesting. They are:

• Laute - eating food that is too luxurious, exotic, or costly
• Studiose - eating food that is excessive in quality (too daintily or elaborately prepared)
• Nimis - eating food that is excessive in quantity (too much)
• Praepropere - eating hastily (too soon or at an inappropriate time)
• Ardenter - eating greedily (too eagerly) 

Laute is sinful because you could be using that money you're wasting on food, Studiose is like going to one of those fancy restaurants that make you a 40$ plate with four tiny items in the center of it. Nimis is full out stuffing your face at the buffet. Praepropere in our society would be to eat all the time since food is so available and Ardenter would be the fat-acceptance movement, or, all people who love food and who seek pleasure in food.



Ardenter is the form of Gluttony the advertisers are playing with for these types of products. I invite you (although reluctantly for I love you too much) to feast your eyes on this abomination:

I actually saw a box of these macaroons at my small town store. For you who don't speak French it 'G-Spot'. Yeah. That's it. I'm out.

I looked more of this up and found that they really decided to go full-out with the merging of Lust and Gluttony. This ad below says 'Make it His Birthday'... I need not say more.

These two have been partners in the food advertising world for a while now, this isn't new. I recall the Magnum ads and their appeal to the Magnum condoms, making a more subtle but still potent connection to food and sex. A 'Royal' tone is set with the Magnum company, which gives a more sophisticated look to the product which makes it passable for a wider audience to buy without making the connection overtly.

As for Point G, they don't care that people are offended and disgusted by their product because they want to be 'edgy', sexually 'open'. These panels from their shop (below) say 'lick' 'drink 'bite' 'experiment', erotic keywords with 'experiment' in the end which invokes a feeling of the unknown, sexual deviancy and perhaps orgiastic visions. Orgies and Ardenter are exactly what this company wants to give as a visual in order to pull in a sad, hypersexualized, and deviant, clientele to its store. It's going with the whole 'third-wave feminism' Be Bold trend. I would have though the brand would have died by now since naming your food after G-Spots should be a downer for many people, but since my local tiny grocery picked up a mass manufactured version of it, I'm losing hope.

In Conclusion, it's good to be aware of sin in order to know when sin is being used against you. Gourmandise is a sin, and obesity is the manifestation of that sin onto your body. Lust can leave you with invisible wounds when it is consumed in excess, but gluttony manifests itself through physical humiliation. Fat people are discriminated against in our society because whether or not people are aware of the sin, everyone sees the human trapped beneath all of those second helpings, all of that extra fat they consumed for the 'hell of it'. In a world that glorifies sin, those who try to remain holy and pure struggle, but the struggle is ultimately good, for the more difficult the test, the more fulfilling the reward.