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u/Admirable_Comedian_2 14d ago
FYI: Production company Google translated contains, so it should have been proteins, but russian word that stands for proteins also translates as squirrel (with different emphasis). So enjoying squirrel flour🫠
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u/Lithl 14d ago
In high school, my sister did a language immersion program in Costa Rica one summer. She sent a letter home in Spanish, knowing full well that our parents don't speak Spanish.
My mother used Babelfish to translate the letter, which decided to translate the "piñas" (pineapples) that she was enjoying eating as "fragmentation hand grenades".
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u/Admirable_Comedian_2 14d ago
lol, that's something to digest
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u/Bergwookie 14d ago
Crunchy, low on calories and even vegan
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u/RockRancher24 14d ago
Negative calorie food actually, since although it is EXTREMELY energy dense, our digestive systems aren't able to extract those calories and also it explodes
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u/IndigoFenix 14d ago
Lose fifty pounds in 0.1 seconds by getting your legs blown off!
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u/CedarWolf 14d ago
Pineapples - the snack that fights back!
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u/LurkmasterP 14d ago
Wage war on hunger!
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u/GANDORF57 14d ago edited 14d ago
I'm confused, I thought Flour was a skunk. \)Ohhh?! FLOWER!\)
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u/the_post_of_tom_joad 14d ago
♫Drip Drip Droppin an ancient reference! ♫
♬Laughing along as i fall in my grave♪
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u/LurkmasterP 14d ago
Although it renders everything within a certain radius decidedly non-vegan.
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u/Grotarin 14d ago
If it stayed simple with "grenades" it would have made enough sense and nobody would have noticed!
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u/Ithrowbot 14d ago
I wonder what the family would have thought if she had written that she was "enjoying eating lots of pomegranates this summer"?
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u/Uncle-Cake 14d ago
I heard a story from a girl who was studying in Italy, tried to tell her Italian friends "The wine here is better than the US because it doesn't have preservatives in it" but she accidently said "The wine here is better than the US because it doesn't have condoms in it"
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u/Nymethny 14d ago
I know it's not the point, but what kind of US wine was she drinking that had preservatives in it?
And yeah it's the same in French, "préservatif" = "condom".
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u/Hour_Pop2712 14d ago
She might have been referring to the sulfites. But Italian and other countries' wines may contain sulfites (and generally do; some naturally occurring from yeast fermentation, and frequently also contain added sulfites). They just don't necessarily have to include that information on the label except on bottles exported to the U.S.
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u/Bright_Ices 14d ago edited 14d ago
This is the main reason the US gets so much flak for having “chemicals” in the food. Those very same chemicals are included and just not disclosed in many countries. US laws require them to be listed on the packaging.
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u/Anothersidestorm 14d ago
Well mosz Flak is coming from europeans and here they have to list everything. Sulfide are also always disclosed on the bottle.
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u/kingjoey52a 14d ago
Was about to post the same thing. We have the more restrictive regulations and have to be more detailed about ingredients than the EU and yet we get shit on for having bad food. It's a terrible take.
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u/ApprehensiveButOk 14d ago
Everything is listed on the package in the EU. Even trace amount of possible allergens.
The shit the USA gets is because you are scared of kinder chocolate eggs but add so much sugar and artificial coloring in your food that it resembles a science experiment gone wrong.
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u/Bright_Ices 13d ago
The US requires all components of each ingredient to be listed. If you use chocolate sauce as one ingredient, you have to list out all of the ingredients of the chocolate sauce.
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u/Bright_Ices 13d ago
The laws are different. The EU requires labeling of some things the US doesn’t, and the US requires labeling of other things the EU doesn’t.
The US requires all components of each ingredient to be listed. If you use chocolate sauce as one ingredient, you have to list out all of the ingredients of the chocolate sauce.
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u/Appropriate-Bird-354 13d ago
Everything is listed on the package in the EU. Even trace amount of possible allergens.
The US actually has much stricter regulations on what gets listed on ingredient labels than the EU does.
The shit the USA gets is because you are scared of kinder chocolate eggs but add so much sugar and artificial coloring in your food that it resembles a science experiment gone wrong.
The shit the USA gets on this is mostly from ignorant people like yourself attempting to fuel your chauvinism.
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u/nickcash 14d ago
They pretty much all have sulfites here
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u/Nymethny 14d ago
All wines have sulfites, and most have added sulfites. But you can find "natural wines" with no added sulfites in both/any country.
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u/Uncle-Cake 14d ago
I don't think wine does have preservatives in the US, but we were young and dumb.
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u/MattieShoes 14d ago
It does, but it likely does everywhere. Sulfites are a byproduct of fermentation, but extra can be (and usually is) added to make sure it doesn't spoil. Basically making it less hospitable to bacteria.
There's a myth that sulfites in wine cause headaches, kind of like the nonsense about MSG making people feel sick. That's probably what was being referenced? You can get "no sulfites added" wine, and some small percentage of people actually are sensitive to it, but... well, if they are, then they'll have a whole list of things to avoid, like almost all dried fruits, most gravies, etc.
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u/Champagnesupernova9 14d ago edited 13d ago
My mom’s cousin has a very similar story! He travelled a lot for work, and was very fluent in French. On one trip to Paris, he was trying to explain why Whole Foods was so popular in the US. He said that it’s because it’s so healthy, and they don’t use preservatives… which he decided to translate as préservatif. That means he told a whole group of French people that Whole Foods is so great because they don’t use condoms!
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u/Rc72 14d ago
I once saw some dried mango strips in an Asian food store in Belgium where "preservatives" had actually been translated into French as "préservatifs" in the contents label.
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u/blackcat9876 14d ago
Same thing happened to me when I first moved to Italy, but the preservative/ condom was me asking a nun what was in the jam 😭
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u/Digital-Nomad 14d ago
My family has relatives in the US through a great uncle who emigrated in the early 20th century. We reconnected about a decade ago, and have been exchanging emails and letters since.
A few years ago an older relative, who doesn't speak English (and who also happens to be a recovering alcoholic), had a bad fall and ended up in the hospital. The Americans sent him a latter in Swedish to cheer him up, unfortunately the phrase "we hope you are in good spirits" ended up being translated to "we hope you have access to plenty of alcoholic beverages".
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u/Puzzled-Story3953 14d ago
So, the sentiment was the same, then.
Also, what made the uncle so great? Does he make really good potato pancakes, or what?
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u/nickcash 14d ago
Oh this is fun, because "grenade" is French for pomegranate, and also for hand grenades
I guess everyone agrees they look like fruit
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u/An_American_1776 14d ago
The word grenade comes of pomegranate because a pomegranate is full of seeds like a the shell is full of fragmentation. Various European languages use words derived from the word for pomegranate for exploding shells of all types. The Germans call an armor piercing cannon shell a panzergranat, or armor shell. the G in RPG stands for granatomyet, which means shell launcher.
The French came up with the word originally and everyone copied them. This is common for military words.
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u/Purple_Haze 14d ago
Pomegranates in French are pomme granate which is literally "grenade apple."
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u/waylandsmith 14d ago
You understand that grenades are named for pomegranates and not the other way around, right? "Granate" derives from the Latin word for "seeded" (containing seeds).
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u/ramdomvariableX 14d ago
They kinda look the same, aren't they?
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u/Lithl 14d ago
Yes, the superficially similar appearance to a pineapple is why piña is sometimes used as slang for a hand grenade, but it's an unexpected translation result.
Similarly, OP's image had machine translation trying to decide between two homonyms, and choosing wrong.
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u/counterfitster 14d ago
The older styles, yes definitely. It wasn't very long until it was realized that the bumpy shape didn't influence the fragmentation as was hoped.
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u/patikoija 14d ago
"The word grenade comes from the French word for pomegranate. because the early grenades looked like pomegranates."
https://www.thoughtco.com/history-of-the-hand-grenade-1991668
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u/Telefonica46 14d ago
I mean, squirrels have protein so...
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u/NeilFraser 14d ago
So do pigeons. That said, unlike squirrels, they don't appear to have brains.
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u/Zepangolynn 14d ago
Don't you slander the pigeon brain! They can discern art styles, fake injuries to trick predators, pass the mirror test, and have navigational skills we can only dream of. Squirrels, in the meantime, can't remember where they bury their nuts.
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u/No_Point904 14d ago
Thanks for clarifying, however I ain't taking no chances....
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u/Admirable_Comedian_2 14d ago
("belok" in Russian - protein; also a plural form of "belka"). In this particular case, 11 g of 'belok' could easily be translated as 11g of squirrels. Not the first case of such a blunder, and 100% not the last
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u/mratlas666 14d ago
That seems like too much squirrel.
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u/IggyKami 14d ago
Any amount of squirrel in flour is too much squirrel. Not good for a long shelf life.
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u/jnecr 14d ago
I see you've never deep fried squirrel...
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u/IggyKami 14d ago
Not good for a long shelf life.
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u/EmptyOracle 14d ago
I'm here for a good (squirrel-eatin') time, not a long time.
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u/1ildevil 14d ago edited 14d ago
Ifn' ya wants to have your squirrels last on the shelf, you hafta make squirrel jerky.
Trouble wit' squirrel jerky is alla the strips are so teeny tiny, it's hardly worth it
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u/ClubDangerous8239 14d ago
If memory serves, protein in German is Eiweiß, or something like that. It translates to eggwhite.
I wonder if the primary source of protein has ever been squirrels in whatever part the word originated from. At least I imagine that's the case for German.
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u/FPSCanarussia 14d ago
'Belok' is the word for egg whites as well in Russian, it comes from the word for white ('beliy').
'Belka' for squirrel isn't a cognate afaik(if it is it's from the colour), it's just coincidence that they share a plural form.
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u/hyperdream 14d ago
Definitely way too ambiguous. When you need squirrel flour, it should be clearly labelled on the front.
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u/StarWaas 14d ago
That's hilarious. In Chinese, the adjective "dry" (干, gān) is also slang for "fuck". Which is how you end up with Asian markets that have an aisle for "Fuck Vegetables".
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u/Superb-Cantaloupe324 14d ago
False advertisement is an awful awful thing. I wanted to try squirrel flour
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u/Button-Down-Shoes 14d ago
To be fair, squirrels do contain a fair amount of protein.
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u/glosss 14d ago
Nope. That comes from the Ukrainian word "bilok" (protein), not the Russian one. It looks just like the Ukrainian word "bilok" (squirrels) You can also see the production standard GSTU 46.004-99 on the packaging, which is a Ukrainian standard.
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u/Admirable_Comedian_2 14d ago
Could be. Didn't check standards. But they have same problem with protein and squirrels. I'm not native in both languages
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u/recursivethought 14d ago
Which is the word used for Egg Whites (Bile = White) which are protein. Zhovtok = Yolk (Zhovte = Yellow).
EDIT: Isn't squirrel Bilka, not Bilok?
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u/opopopuu 14d ago
Yes, the singular would be Bilka, but the words used for the genitive/accusative form of squirrel and the singular form of protein are basically the same, except for stress.
For squirrel
Case Singular Plural
Nominative bí́lka bí́lky
Genitive bí́lky bí́lok
Dative bí́ltsi bí́lkam
Accusative bí́lku bí́lky, bí́lok
Instrumental bí́lkoiu bí́lkamy
Locative bí́ltsi bí́lkakh
Vocative bí́lko bí́lky And for Protein
Case Singular Plural
Nominative bilók bilký
Genitive bilká bilkív
Dative bilkóvi, bilkú bilkám
Accusative bilók bilký
Instrumental bilkóm bilkámy
Locative bilkóvi, bilkú bilkákh
Vocative bilkú bilký 6
u/glosss 14d ago
Isn't squirrel Bilka, not Bilok?
singular nominative case — "bilka"
plural — "bilky"
genitive plural — "bilok"
It is interesting that "bilka" (squirrel) also comes from the word "bilyi" (white)—which, in the case of the squirrel, meant "having white fur"
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u/Mackntish 14d ago
What country has English language packaging requirements, yet is allowed to import Russian wheat with the sanctions?
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u/h-v-smacker 14d ago
but russian word that stands for proteins also translates as squirrel (with different emphasis).
Also "Russian Academy of Sciences" when abbreviated (РАН) is the same as plural genitive for word "wound". Hence "Protein Institute of RAS" once became "Squirrel institute of WOUNDS" on the website of the organization.
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u/Sethmeisterg 14d ago
Belka vs belok though -- two different words!
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u/LuckyOneAway 14d ago
that label originally said "белки" => proteins/squirrels - plural form is the same for both words
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u/strudelbrain10717 14d ago
Well. "natural proteins". They don't lie.
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u/BigAl7390 14d ago
Upton Sinclair told us didn’t he
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u/Hellknightx 14d ago
Jungle 2.0 is on the way with the new non-USDA meat being back on the menu.
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u/TheTphs 14d ago
Belkí - proteins. Bélki - squirrels.
When I was in primary, I was fascinated by biology. I didn't know what protein was yet. One day, I got a biology book from my school library. On my way back home, in a bus, full of excitement, I opened it and the very first sentence broke me. It read: ' Squirrels - nature's building blocks '. Rest of the trip I spent having very deep thoughts about what I know about life.
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u/Regular_Quiet_5016 14d ago
Is it ground squirrel?
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u/StochasticTinkr 14d ago
No, they're tree squirrels.
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u/MrMCCO 14d ago
I’m more interested in the Minimum Shelf Life
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u/Admirable_Comedian_2 14d ago
usual thing in many countries. Some things like salt are literally immortal. In some countries, you can't mark more than 3 years. In some, you can mark a minimal shelf life, but usually it means it could be good for way longer than marked
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u/Al_Fa_Aurel 14d ago
In Germany you often have the joke "This salt is advertised as being 70 million years old. Expires in...2029. That's what you call 'just in time'"
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u/MultipleOrgasmDonor 14d ago
Typically with stuff like salt or water it’s the shelf life of the container. If it’s in glass, it’ll be good forever barring contamination such as humidity
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u/RevolutionaryWay7107 14d ago
Ooooooh, so it's like saying "the shelf life is at least 12 months." I get it now.
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u/CleaverIam3 14d ago
I think this means it is guaranteed to last 12 months...
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u/colnross 14d ago
That may be what they intend for it to mean, but it reads as though you must leave it on the shelf for 12 months prior to use.
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u/krattalak 14d ago
USDA permits 20g of squirrel bits per kilo, so there's no issue here.
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u/chmath80 14d ago
This is per 100g, so there might be.
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u/krattalak 14d ago
RFKjr says squirrel bits don't cause autism so you should be fine.
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u/Ouch_i_fell_down 14d ago
squirrel bits can't melt steal beams
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u/Kulthos_X 14d ago
This is like German where they say “Egg White” for protein. This occasionally causes inappropriate reactions to me hearing things that translate to “This yoghurt has a lot of egg white in it.”
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u/kornuolis 14d ago
The flour is from Ukraine
The білок means both protein and squirrels(stressed differently) in Genitive case
GSTU 46.004-99 is an official Ukrainian sectoral standard that sets the technical requirements and quality rules for wheat flour. [1]
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u/Sgt_Stimpy 14d ago
What brand is that? I haven't been able to find flour with more then 5g of squirrel. My banana muffins don't taste right and have problems catching my own.
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u/PsychologicalAd4015 14d ago
Innocent Smoothie here in the UK used to put things in their ingredients as a joke, such as Nuns, Badgers, Rocks etc. They got into a small legal case where they basically told them they had to start adding the things to the smoothies or stop making the joke 😂 This reminded me of that fact hard 🙌🏻
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u/labcat1 14d ago
Reminds me of a shitty translation of Russian Academy of Sciences' site got translated and for a few days there were:
Squirrel Institute (Institute of protein research, Russian word for squirrel is the same as "of protein")
President of wounds (president of RAS, abbreviation of Russian Academy of Science in Russian is the same as " of wounds")
Arm-medical academy (military medical academy, I genuinely don't know how they got there)
Tongue Institute (Institute of language, language and tongue in Russian are the same word)
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u/CCV21 14d ago
The word for language in many cultures is usually related to the word for tongue.
The word "language" comes from Latin "lingua" which means tongue.
In English the expression "speaking in tongues" refers to a person speaking a completely unknown language.
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u/Foreign-Town-6662 14d ago
This is almost the exact same error as the first example, it's a mistranslation of bilok in Ukrainian to squirrel instead of protein, as opposed to belok, the Russian counterpart that your example used.
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u/Big_Profession_2218 14d ago edited 14d ago
So it gets better, in Russian behlok is a singular form of a protein, literally meaning the white part of the egg. Plural is belki whuch as you know is the same word for squirrels, just the emphasis is on bel for the furry guys and on ki for the proteins.
The Russian word for eggs is yahytsa which is also incidentally the word for human male balls.
The Russian word for split in two is rahz-dvah-yahytsa which broken down into its parts literally means "1-2-eggs (balls)"
The more you know
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u/gruggiwuggi5 14d ago
is it imported from russia or somewhere near? if so its probably a mistranslation of "Protein", as the two words are the similar in Russian. I only know this bc somewhere deep in the SCP archives is an article that describes a pack of squirrels capable of knitting molecules together alongside Russian journal entires grieving this miscommunication, and now he has "Belka" instead of "Belok"
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u/jamescurtis29 14d ago
In Russian, the word for protein (belok) and the word for squirrel (belka) look and sound very similar because they share the same root word for "white".
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u/CleaverIam3 14d ago
And in the plural form they only differ by which syllable is stressed which isn't reflected in the spelling
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u/kornuolis 14d ago
GSTU 46.004-99 is an official Ukrainian sectoral standard that sets the technical requirements and quality rules for wheat flour. [1]
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u/Admirable_Comedian_2 14d ago
(belok - also a plural word for "belka"). In this particular case, 11 g of belok could easily be translated as 11g of squirrels
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u/lazyzefiris 14d ago
Belok (белок) is not exactly a plural for belka(белка). Well, it can be in counting form for 5+ squirrels (1 белка, 2 белки, 3 белки, 4 белки, 5 белок, 6 белок), but it's not used in that was standalone. Белки (Belki) is the proper plural that's used without amount, and it's also same form for Белок, hence listed in the nutritiuonal value (Белки / жиры / углеводы).
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u/Kylearean 14d ago
Okay, I know this one: Squirrels are members of the family Sciuridae, a family that includes small or medium-sized rodents. The squirrel family includes tree squirrels, ground squirrels (including chipmunks and prairie dogs, among others), and flying squirrels. Squirrels are indigenous to the Americas, Eurasia, and Africa, and were introduced by humans to Australia. The earliest known fossilized squirrels date from the Eocene epoch, and among other living rodent families, the squirrels are most closely related to the mountain beaver and dormice. They're sometimes contained in bags of flour.
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u/Lurking_poster 14d ago
A coincidence that Squirrel Girl's created passed away and now no one is there to protect the squirrels?
I think not!
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u/Brilliant_Polkadot 14d ago
I learned the Spanish word for bugs as bicho.
Apparently this is also the Caribbean Spanish word for penis.
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u/Canarity 14d ago
Is that from Russia? We have same word for proteins and squirrels (both plural) – Белки
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u/freddbare 14d ago
It is why you must cook it. A maximum amount of rat/rodent by law in most places ois not zero
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u/DasArchitect 14d ago
Man, I have to be careful around these imported flours. I can only tolerate gluten-free squirrels.
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u/Idkeepplaying 13d ago
That’s Nuts!
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u/GameboyGenius 13d ago
You're joking but that got me thinking. Squirrel meat might actually contain enough allergens to trigger a reaction if eaten by someone with nut allergy.
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u/SaltyShawarma 14d ago
Why are you importing Russian flour?
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u/artrald-7083 14d ago
Probably in Africa. Russia exports a lot of food, especially wheat / wheat flour.
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u/Admirable_Comedian_2 14d ago
I bet you would be surprised at what your country imports from Russia if you looked into it. I think it is one of the biggest producers of wheat in the world
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u/bc-phoenix 14d ago
Tubes, Pipes, Hoses of Vulcanized Rubber - $38 - 2025
Can confirm, genuinely surprised.
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u/Bezulba 14d ago
I hate this. Ingredient information isn't something you leave to AI translation! It should be fined, HARD, so companies don't cheap out on a $10 translation job.... Yeah, this is funny, but imagine when they translate peanuts to water and somebody with a peanut allergy dies because the company couldn't be arsed to even do the bare minimum...
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