Last night I saw this commercial on television:
What the huh?!?
It looks as though the food industry has now found a way to once again trick people into thinking that sugary cereals are now good for them because they contain fiber.
Yeah, the label says it has three grams of fiber, but it also has twelve grams of sugar and that's just for one 1 cup serving. Give me a break! How many kids do you know only eat 1 cup of cereal?
According to the New York Times, "there is a new food-labeling campaign called Smart Choices, backed by most of the nation's largest food manufacturers" which is "designed to help shoppers easily identify smarter food and beverage choices."
Froot Loops isn't the only product that will receive the Smart Choices green checkmark. Apple Jacks got it. Coco Krispies also got one. So did Fudgesicle. And Hellman's mayonaise. And Skippy peanut butter.
Holy crow! This is what the food industry deems as "nutritious"?!?
And I love the quote from Celeste A. Clark who is the senior vice president of global nutrition for Kellogg's: "Froot Loops is an excellent source of many essential vitamins and minerals and it is also a good source of fiber with only 12 grams of sugar. You cannot judge the nutritional merits of a food product based on one ingredient."
Lady, have you looked at the list of ingredients?!? There is very little in it that is nutritional! As noted on the Food Politics website, Froot Loops cereal contains:
1. No fruit.
2. Sugar as the first ingredient (meaning the highest in weight - 41%)
3. Sugar as 44% of the calories.
4. Partially hydrogenated vegetable oil (aka trans-fat), though with less than half a gram so the label can read zero.
I'm sure you can find cookies, chips, and other junk foods that are healthier than this box of cereal. Or maybe it is a healthy product and us PCPers are just a bunch of crazy eating whole foods, exercising, and blindly following this nut-case named Patrick to an alien spaceship to take us to our true home in another galaxy.
Nope. I just checked the mirror and stepped on the scale. I've definitely lost weight and I'm looking pretty good. Definitely no crazy here.
Heh heh, maybe a little crazy.
ReplyDeleteThat this Fruit Loops and Skippy Peanut Butter thing can even pass the laugh test is a testament to how out of whack our perceptions are about food in America.
Makes you want to pull your hair out, but what you're doing, what we're all doing with our PCPS, is showing the people around us there is another way. Starting with the fruit and vegetable aisle.
(By the way, if you watch the commercial closely, you can see the little girl is pouring out way more than the suggested serving size)
They should do another take of this commercial.
KId Doctor: Hey, I've got good news, you've got DIABETES!
Kid Patient: Huh?
(LIttle girl unpacking insulin shots screen left)
my mom and i got into a debate tonight after she tells me she allows my little sister, 8, two glasses per day of organic chocolate milk which is OK because it's healthier. I was like UM no. She continued to disagree with me. And she wonders why my kid sister is obese.
ReplyDeleteThat's quite an interesting comment about the little girl's serving size. Doctors did a test over here with schools of 4 -5 year olds to see how much cereal on average, they pour into their bowls for themselves.
ReplyDeleteThey found that the vast majority poured out about 60g. Double the 30g recommended serving shown on the pack. So that's DOUBLE the sugar!!!
I saw a Triscuits commercial the other day that had a buff guy jumping through a stream of Triscuits. Apparently, the "made with whole grain" Triscuits were what was fueling his amazing acrobatics and it was "okay to enjoy" as many as we want. Uh...no.
ReplyDelete