That Viral Photo of ‘Roundmeal’ Macaroni and Beef Product is Totally Fake

Have you seen that photo of a product called “Roundmeal,” the “protein-blasted” macaroni and beef product? The image has been making the rounds on Twitter and Reddit over the past 24 hours with people expressing both their disgust and delight at this weird food. But you’ll be sad (or relieved) to learn that it’s totally fake.

The product, made by a fake company called Henton’s, includes helpful instructions on “how to do it,” as you can see in the expertly photoshopped image above. Step 1: boil it in the bag. Step 2: open and enjoy. The product “serves three men” and if you look closely at the bottom you’ll notice Roundmeal is just 140 calories. It’s basically diet food.

There’s even a promotion that says customers can win a visit from Davis. Who’s Davis? That part isn’t clear, but his speech bubble says “I’ll come to you.” How could this bizarre food product exist? It doesn’t.

The image was actually created by Alan Wagner, a video artist from Los Angeles who tweets under the name @truewagner. Wagner has made plenty of other fakes before, including “Child with small telescope” and “Obama is back in a BIG way.”

Do you know what’s real though? This video of a woman making something that looks very much like Roundmeal. She starts with a ball of macaroni and cheese, squeezes out a huge tube of raw beef on the counter, mashes a bunch of Velveeta cheese like play-doh, and creates one of the more disgusting things ever capture on video. She tops off the Franken-beef creation with pastry dough and pops it all in the oven.

Well, we think it’s real. In the sense that it existed in the world at least once, it’s real, even if the creators are trolling people. And that was probably one time too many if we do say so ourselves.