What Your Food Choices Say About Your Politics
It's almost over. After a mere 1,854 or so months, election season is mercifully finally coming to an end. No longer will you have to plug your ears with wads of toilet paper and cover your eyes with bumper stickers in order to avoid the incessant screaming from pundits and blitz of ads trying to pull you in either direction.
At least, that's how I'm sure a lot of you folks out there are feeling; it's the terrible physical exhaustion that comes with overdosing on anything. Me? I can't get enough of the political races. Not so much because of the results -- although, yes, of course I care deeply about how things are shaping up on Election Day -- but also because of the circus surrounding it. It. Is. Wonderful. You get so much interesting and eye-opening content out of it. For instance, these amazing charts over at BuzzFeed which claim to link a consumer's food choices and their politics.
Go ahead, click on over and take a gander. I'll wait.
The numbers were crunched by an app called Engage, something that monitors "likes" on Facebook pages, runs them through whatever surely-copyright-protected algorithm they have hidden under lock-and-key, and spits out which brands are more popular with Democrats, which fast food chains are visited more often by Republicans, and even what your choice of booze means. (Spoiler: Guinness drinkers are pro-Romney, PBR chuggers heart Obama.)
Some of the trends make a kind of emotional sense: Chick-fil-A, of course, is going to draw people who identify with red-state values. Cracker Barrel is all about providing Southern cuisine, so surely they'll be more loved by the conservative bunch. (Actually, fast food chains as a whole tend to skew towards wishing for a Romney presidency, which makes all sorts of sense.) But there are a few bits of data that are surprising:
- Red Bull and Monster energy drinkers love Obama, whereas those who chug Rockstar in order to get past their deadlines back Romney. Both camps, however, aren't the most likely to vote at all. (Probably because they're too busy simply trying not to die.)
- Dannon yogurt: Romney. Fage Greek yogurt: Also Romney, but not by a lot.
- Campbell's and Progressive soups: Both love Romney.
- Pepsi's a bit more to the left than Coke drinkers. Sprite drinkers are in love with Obama.
- U.S.D.A Beef? Guess who. Go ahead. Take a wild stab at it.
- And while Ben and Jerry's is clearly on the Obama side of the ledger, Häagen-Dazs eaters can't seem to make up their minds either way. But they will definitely be voting, meaning this should have been the voting bloc that both Obama and Romney threw their money after. Alas, one candidate is going to be haunted by this lack of political insight tonight. (Or tomorrow morning. However long this takes.)
The list goes on and on ... But maybe you're sick of politics and just hoping for the whole thing to be over. In which case, why not simply head right on over to your polling place, say hello to the nice, old lady who's no doubt using a ruler to find your name on the voter roll, spend a few minutes in the booth -- making sure to give a big ol' Yes vote on Prop 37 -- head back home, and take a long nap. It'll mostly be over by the time you wake up.
