How is this not on !nottheonion@lemmy.world, i took the liberty to cross post.
I appreciate the effort to bodge together a composite image of a possum eating an Oreo instead of a slop AI image. Nice one spinoff.co.nz.
Bad Photoshop is still better than AI crap! At least has character
Just realised there likely will be a day we say bad ai ai slop is better then the new technical innovation
I appreciate the sense of humor from the Oreo representative who was asked to comment on the story:
It is a market we hadn’t considered, and I have to confess that it was a demographic, or should I say genus/genera, that we missed in our product testing and development programme
And also this
Their statement also included some bad news for possum trappers across the country: stocks of the limited-edition range are dwindling. … Moving forward, the spokesperson suggested that Predator Free NZ might consider “aural bait” such as Selena Gomez’s hit song ‘Come and Get It’.
Once the Oreos are all gone, they should try churros. I bet it’s the sweet cinnamon smell that’s calling to them. Do they have churros in New Zealand?
Determined to solve our stubborn possum problem, Hickling recently ran a pilot trial on a rural property in Leeston, Canterbury. He wanted to test whether pre-feeding the possums near the trap would build up their confidence enough that they would eventually put their head inside, much like a teenager pre-loading on Cruisers before a party. In fact, the initial experiment actually toyed with the idea of giving possums addictive psychoactive drugs to increase their motivation and confidence to enter the trap, but ultimately proved too challenging to execute.“
"We wanted to try something that we could do in the field that mimicked the effect of a psychoactive drug,” Hickling explains. “And that’s when I came across this psychological paper which suggested that a combination of fat and sugar was quite addictive.” That finding, combined with a US study on rats that used Oreo cookies, sent Hickling down to the local New World. “It just so happened that they had these Selena Gomez Oreos, which I hadn’t even heard of. They had both cinnamon and chocolate, which possums like, and they were on sale.”
Hickling estimates he bought 20 packets of Selena Gomez Oreos for the trial, and soon was out in the field in Leeston attaching the cookies along the planks that lead up to the possum traps. “One of the things that’s nice about an Oreo is that you can just drill a little hole through it and just tap it on with a flathead nail,” he says. “People have tried to use Tim Tams in the past, but they are really expensive. Oreos are quite a bit cheaper, and they actually stand up to the rain quite well too, which is a little disconcerting.”
It wasn’t just the structural integrity – the possums bloody loved the “flavour-forward and horchata-inspired” treat. “They would come each night, and they would take the Oreos, and then after several nights had built up enough confidence that they took the extra couple of steps, and that was the point they got trapped,” Hickling says. In the control traps without Selena Gomez Oreos, they caught one possum in nine days. Once they began the “Selena Gomez regime”, they caught 15 possums in 20 days.
Hickling estimates he bought 20 packets of Selena Gomez Oreos for the trial, and soon was out in the field in Leeston attaching the cookies along the planks that lead up to the possum traps. “One of the things that’s nice about an Oreo is that you can just drill a little hole through it and just tap it on with a flathead nail,” he says. “People have tried to use Tim Tams in the past, but they are really expensive. Oreos are quite a bit cheaper, and they actually stand up to the rain quite well too, which is a little disconcerting.”
Mate, if you think how they hold up in the rain is disconcerting, you should have a read of what’s in 'em…
Sugar, unbleached enriched flour, palm oil, soy lechtin, Selena Gomez, cocoa processed with alkali, high fructose corn syrup
Everything a growing boy needs.
Oreos are quite a bit cheaper, and they actually stand up to the rain quite well too, which is a little disconcerting.
Sounds about as ultra processed as the Twinkie®
I’m not saying Oreos aren’t ultra processed, because obviously they are, but the ability to hold up in water is actually something UP carbs lack. Ultra processed snacks are lots of food pieces that have been “glued” back together with sugars or whatever, so they typically dissolve in water very easily. A piece of homemade bread on the other hand, holds up relatively well to moisture.
https://www.npr.org/2026/02/16/nx-s1-5708698/ultra-processed-food-diet-health
And me too. The cinnamon ones right? I get trapped eating 4 packs at a clip. 😖
They made oreos out of Selena Gomez? Gross. I draw the line at cannibalism.
its not cannibalism if u feed her to opossums tho
True, good point, but just for the facts, they’re feeding them to possums, (New Zealand) not opossums (America). I’m sure American opossums would appreciate Selena Gomez Oreos too, though. As the man said, “they’re very tasty.”
good catch! mea culpa
Don’t be ridiculous. They are artificially flavored to taste like her.
Oh.
Still though…
