The Circle of Life…Corporate Life…
Pop Tarts World
I have been trying to process the news about Pop Tarts World into a blog entry that makes sense. You see, from an entirely corporate point of view, Pop Tarts World makes a lot of sense. Not only do they get a spot on Times Square with a massive foot traffic, but also, and more importantly, they received reports in the New York Times and Fox News, amongst the millions of media outlets who ran their press release (I would not say reported on it, because what happened wasn’t reporting). This is a great value for them and I am sure their stock went up. But the real question is, ‘Is this a great value for us?’ How do we understand a business culture in which good business decisions result in an unhealthier citizenry?
I think to understand this relationship and how it effects us all, we need to change our point of view so we can see a bigger picture.
The Rise of Kellogg’s
Pop Tarts is a division of Kellogg’s, a publicly traded company. It goes under the stock symbol K on the New York Stock Exchange. It is currently trading at 51.06 per share. 10 years ago it traded at about 23.10 per share. Pop Tarts are a very successful brand/division of the Kellogg’s company. Originally released in 1964 in response to a product released by Post called Country Squares, the better named Pop Tarts (taking advantage of the pop art movement at the time) took off. In fact, they were so popular Kellogg’s could not keep up with demand.
In 1967 Kellogg had developed a ‘frosting’ that could withstand the heat of the toaster, and the first frosted pop tarts appeared (although litigation ensued, starting in 1992 when it was shown that if left unattended in a toaster too long, pop tarts could create flames over a foot high).
Originally only 4 flavours-strawberry, blueberry, sugar cinnamon and apple current-there are now 28. So, as can be seen the pop tart isn’t a static object, but a constantly ‘improving’ brand, always looking at ways to increase its share of the Kellogg’s empire’s profits. From the New York Times:
Kellogg’s said Pop-Tarts had been a strong performer in the most recent quarter, but its net sales were smaller than those of M&M’s and Hershey. In the last year, Kellogg’s sold $481 million worth of Pop-Tarts in mass United States stores (excluding Wal-Mart), according to market-research firm SymphonyIRI Group. Hershey sold $1.07 billion worth of candy, while M&M’s sold $753 million.
“Our long-term hope is to strengthen the bonding between the brand and the consumer, and that has great benefits for the brand,” Mr. Patout said.
The connection to M&M’s and Hershey’s is more than just the acknowledgment that these three brands are all candy, but more importantly because Pop Tarts has just taken a page out of the candy makers advertising strategies (They both apparently have stores in Times Square). You see, only so much can be done in the factory to get you excited about products. Most of the work of increasing a corporations profits comes from marketing.
The Rise of Marketing
I have described marketing in this blog as ‘polishing a turd’, but obviously that is overstated. Marketing is simply the increasing of awareness to the public of a product by any means available, ideally connecting it with positive connotations. As much as the stock of Kellogg’s has grown over the years, so have the techniques of marketing. For years, things were relatively stable as we began to understand just how powerful marketing was. Television, radio and print media dominated. Those really were your only three marketing options for decades. Certain restrictions on advertising, mainly hard liquor and cigarettes, allowed for sporting events to be branded by these companies for awhile, but otherwise, it was the big three. Along came the internet and everything changed. For awhile it just added a new stream to marketing, and you had the big four, tv, print, radio and web, but that didn’t last for long. Soon, products were being featured in paid for blogs without anyone knowing who was paying for the blogs, the news media started regurgitating press releases instead of producing news, and millions of unique, small events could become sponsored. All of these techniques and many more meant that guerrilla marketing was here to stay.
Obviously guerrilla marketing has been around a lot longer, but there is something more pernicious and mainstream about it now. It is part of any companies marketing strategy, not a wild idea any longer, but instead, business as usual.
Why is this modest and hardly adequate dissertation on marketing important? Because Pop Tarts has always been at the forefront of the changes to marketing and its value in our culture. Pop Tarts beat out Country Square because of the naming and a cartoon toaster named ‘Milton’. This was back in the early 60′s, almost 50 years ago. Since then they have convinced us that Pop Tarts should be part of our breakfast because they are easy and quick in the morning and given our fast paced world, who has time for a healthy breakfast.
In fact, the marketing departments of the big food companies are so far off in their own world, improperly labeling foods that we should probably avoid as ‘part of a healthy diet’, that the lawyers are having pretend that the marketers were just kidding us… In the most brazen and disturbing twist in the ‘sugary juice’ marketed as healthy ‘Vitamin Water’ saga, the lawyers for Coca Cola responded that ‘no consumer could reasonably be misled into thinking vitamin water was a healthy beverage.’
According to the Center for Science in the Public Interest:
The company (Coca Cola) claims that vitaminwater variously reduces the risk of chronic disease, reduces the risk of eye disease, promotes healthy joints, and supports optimal immune function, and uses health buzz words such as “defense,” “rescue,” “energy,” and “endurance” on labels.
Ya, how could anyone think that is healthy. In fact in an earlier post about how unhealthy Vitamin Water is, I pointed out the following reasons that I thought were especially agregious in attempting to make the sugar water appear healthy:
The package includes the following attempts to sound like a health product:
- Recommended dose: Take one 591ml bottle per day as needed.
- It breaks ingredients down into medicinal and non-medicinal
- Nutrient enhanced water beverage
Now the lawyers are seriously arguing that nobody would believe the ‘lies’ of the marketing department for the very same company that they work for. Whatever the case, here is a company that is trying to take your health and money away from you, using any tactic possible. Even when the marketing department oversteps legal decency, the companies still try to trade your money and health for their substandard products.
Times Square: PackagedFoodLand
This marketing isn’t limited to candy companies and pop companies either. Burger King has now launched a Burger Bar in Times Square. Included in the offerings are a NY Pizza Burger. The idea of course was to get the most calories into one menu item (2530 calories) and in so doing, get the false outrage of all media outlets focused into fingers typing madly on keyboards around the internet, which would in turn output story after story about this hideous monstrosity. In reality though it is just a big burger (4 patties) spread out on a very large bun that is cut into six pieces. Whatever. Our fascination about bad foods is part of our national culture and like a trainwreck we cannot turn away from another, bigger burger. So the companies make foods that are worse for us, media outlets report on them and we reward these companies with more mind share and in turn higher profits. It is sad, but it makes a lot of people a lot of money.
David Zinczenko gets another list for his franchise of useless books, Eat This Not That-an annual Craziest Food Creations list-and like the puritanical zealot fighting to stamp out pornography, all the while salivating over every scene, David Zinczenko can warn us about this food abomination, all the while excited to be able to offer a ‘Double Down’ as an ‘Eat That Instead’ choice.
So, as Times Square becomes a theme park for unhealthy food choices, a real life food lab, and families clamor for any cheep entertainment, including Kellogg’s pathetic laser light show and make believe ‘you are a pop tart’ lighting (an add on to their Times Square store so week and feeble that Donald Trump would fire an entire team of celebrity apprentices if they came up with an idea so pale and vapid), we all feed an industry that is literally killing us.
Our Role
We don’t hold them responsible, because, well, marketing doesn’t work on us, they have to make money, and Pop Tarts and Coca Cola were part of our youth, they can’t be bad. If you ever had to wonder what a soulless, greedy corporate environment would look like, we are getting close. We need to remember that these companies don’t like us. It isn’t that they dislike us or anything, but more that they care as little for us as they do an ant crossing unnoticed under their feet. As long as their bottom line continues to grow, they don’t care if they make us sick or kill us. If you understand this when you look at the ads and the regurgitated press releases, you are on your way to getting fitter. When you see a report of another fun store opening in times square to share with you some great food experience, remember, they are really just looking for free publicity and to strengthen their brand (which again is an attempt to make you eat their foods because you like the company). If you can see the man behind the curtain it makes it a hell of a lot easier to see the wrong that they are doing. The next time you see a celebrity or professional athlete shilling for these people, remember what a pathetic, sell-out this person is, forever giving up the quality of being a role model. Don’t think of these companies or celebrities as friends any longer. They crossed a line, they don’t think of you as anything but a ‘mark’ to scam money off of you.
In a fair society, a decent society that cared for its citizens, all of these people would honestly be in jail. They are knowingly doing the public harm just to increase their wealth. We aren’t that society right now, hopefully we will be once again. I don’t know. I do know that in the meantime we need to see the circle of corporate life as part of the problem in this battle with obesity. Maybe you were smart enough to see Vitamin Water as a scam, and maybe you see Pop-Tarts for what they are. Maybe you are immune to marketing. Maybe. But you know what, most people aren’t. Companies know the value of marketing. They have spent millions of dollars doing secret research to tell them exactly how to get the public to buy their product. If that includes lies about health benefits or stores in Times Square, and make no mistake, it does, then they will do just that. They know that marketing will get many of us to make terrible choices and they are happy to exploit that. So, even if you are aware of these scams, don’t defend the companies with claims that ‘you can read the ingredients on the package’ and so on. You really are just doing the companies work for them, as they divide sugar into three separate versions, including ‘organic evaporated cane juice’, Dextrose, and White Grape Juice, allowing the individual smaller amounts to let them go lower in the ingredients list, when added together as sugar they would be at the top.
*Please note that the main image is a poster made by Zakhren Subang and is posted on the following website. It is posted without permission here.
WordPress is banned in China too!
So, I couldn’t even access my WordPress account along my twitter account while I was in China. I had no idea how hard that would be. I had so many things I wanted to share while I was there, but alas, no access to share it. In any case, I will be sure to post those thoughts in the next week or so. A few initial ideas here though…
China:
- China was awesome.
- The culture shock going from Vancouver was minimal, almost non-existent.
- The culture shock of going from China to Disneyland was disturbing.
- Almost everything I read about business in China was wrong. China is huge and I am sure business in Shanghai or Hong Kong may be all business suits and no pointing, but that isn’t the case in north central China.
- Most people in China are thin, but boy oh boy are they ever changing that with the increase in wealth.
- I have heard that things have slowed down in China, but if that is slowed down, I would have hated to have seen them going fast because the entire country appeared to be building.
- Everything from Cold Stone Creamery to McDonald’s is available in Beijing (future entry on my fast food comparisons to come shortly).
- China is disturbingly capatalistic.
- They lie even more in commercials in China. In fact, there are far fewer regulations in China which really isn’t a good thing.
- The people in China were so kind and giving it was fantastic to reinforce what I already know: People are generally nice and kind the world over.
- China isn’t noticeably in love with the west or the US. They aren’t scarfing down Big Mac’s or embracing western culture. Maybe it is the significant cultural output of China, the internet blocking or the language barrier.
- The language barrier in China is amazing. You get an idea of it when you look at the translations. I was buckled over laughing constantly at the signs.
- Being an over 40, unfit white person is a photo op, why couldn’t it be this way the world over….
- There is a pervasive attitude of accepting whatever is. It is very relaxing and given the traffic in Beijing, probably necessary. I thought the driver was exaggerating when he said we may get caught in a 2 day traffic jam on the way to the Great Wall. Meanwhile I discovered that there was a 9 day traffic jam going on a little further down the highway. Where is the rapid transit?????
Los Angeles:
- My god there are a lot of freeways in LA. Way too many. Where is the rapid transit????
- The people in LA are relatively thin.
- Food portion sizes and waste are out of control. Every restaurant seems to have burgers, pizza, macaroni and cheese, and chicken strips as the sum total of their children’s menus, each and every one of them available with french fries (this is the kids pizza from the Cheesecake Factory, it is enormous).
- Everyone should spend a little while observing the the quality of service in the US. The quality and pride of service is unmatched.
- The fastpass system at Disney is awesome. Arial’s Grotto is a scam…
- I found the epidemic of weight gain in the US. I think Disneyland is a fair cross section of the american family and if so, the american family is in trouble. I was totally unprepared for the amount of seriously overweight people. What disturbed me more though was the high percentage of significantly overweight children. The numbers are staggering!! I wonder if there are any studies on obesity in families as opposed to single people and people without kids.
I am sure there are many more things to think of, but I am just glad to sit down at my computer for a few minutes and type.
Oh, you have got to be kidding me!??!?!
How is this even possible. After a pathetic initial offering in the fitness video game market, and a marginally improved second shot, Jillian Michaels is at it again with Fitness Ultimatum 2011!
That isn’t surprising. In fact, it is to be expected. If there are any dollars to be gotten in the fitness industry, Jillian Michaels and her business partner Giancarlo Cherisch will sniff them out and find some way to get them from you. Even as we speak they are devising new cruises, equipment, games, tv shows, books, diet pills and supplements,ostensibly acting as ” life architects whose sole mission is to inspire individuals to empower themselves to seek healthier, active lives”. Ya, right, I believe that. After all, selling diet pills and cleanses as the first act as the architect tells me you have some pretty lousy plans to inspire and empower others.
The thing that really bothers me about Fitness Ultimatum 2011 is:
Fitness Ultimatum 2011 features a story-based Adventure mode where Jillian and the player use their fitness skills and nutrition expertise in a series of missions to shut down Cureall, an evil food and drug corporation set upon world domination.
Seriously!?!?… Jillian Michaels is fighting against an evil food and drug corporation set upon world domination… That doesn’t sound like her at all. In fact as I have pointed out after doing an extensive amount of research, Jillian Michaels herself is in bed with a company that even a member of congress is characterizing as an evil food and drug corporation (you can read more here and here). This is so bizarre, so pathetic as to make me think I am living in the twilight zone. Is she not aware that we will smell out the hypocrisy here???
Maybe I am misunderstanding this whole thing. Maybe there is a post modern twist to the game. In some Matrix meets Inception twist, you will be going through the action game, as Jillian Michaels, defender of health and goodness the world over, killing Cureall operatives (2o arm chops per operative) and as you make it to the CEO’s office (run on sport for 1 minute), and kick in the door (20 leg extensions), you are confronted by the back of a large leather chair on the other side of a huge mahogany desk. As the chair slowly turns towards you, you see yourself in the chair, Jillian Michaels, CEO of Cureall. She says, “You remind me of someone… a woman I met in a half-remembered dream. She was possessed of some radical notions” as you feel the kick and the screen fades to black…
Damn, what was I saying, this could be the best video game ever!!! Mind you, your first hint you were up against Jillian’s empire would have been fighting against Giancarlo Cherisch, Natalie Chevreau, and Daniel B. Mowrey in the previous boss levels…
One last thing that gets to me about this press release is this:
Jillian Michaels: Fitness Ultimatum 2011 is the only official video game series developed by Jillian Michaels.
Many of you may not know that I was in the video game development industry awhile back. The thing is, I have a pretty good idea of how hard it is to develop a video game. I have a very good idea of the long hours, the hard work and the remarkable creativity and brain power that goes into one of these, so when celebrities state that they develop a video game (or for that matter a cleanse, or a proprietary weight loss blend or whatever) it makes me angry. I am so sick of megalomaniacal celebrities that actually act like they believe the load of crap they are selling. In reality, a lot of hard working people will actually develop this product, and Jillian Michaels may show up for a few days of video compositing and possibly fitness moves in a special suit and next thing you know everyone is claiming that she is the developer.
The sad fact is, I like Jillian Michaels the trainer. I liked her initial lack of empathy and understanding of the fat people on the Biggest Loser. The way when they said “I can’t”, she looked at them with a blank stare like they were speaking a different language, and then she would rip into them, tearing down whatever walls they had to pushing themselves (you would be amazed at how effective that can be for getting fit). That was before she became the fat whisperer and could not only empathize with the overweight, but moreover, could pinpoint the tragic moment when they were ‘damaged’ and began this detrimental lifestyle, thus freeing them from the burdens they suffered under and allowing them to be fit once again.
So, given my initial impressions of her, I am sad to see that under the Empowered Media brand she keeps putting out loser product after loser product. Here’s to hoping for some wins in her future, while she still has a few minutes of fame left in her. After all, we could all use some good products in the health and fitness category.
You can see the original press release here.
Clean?!?! There is a lot to a name…
Earlier this week I had noticed that Ashton Kutcher and Demi Moore had finally decided to stop taking the ‘Master Cleanse’ and have moved onto the Clean program(here). I was saddened to see that people with such a reach and such a significant following are such flakes. I kind of like the Kutcher, Moore and Willis group. Anyone with a family, who can divorce and remarry and do it so publicly and get along as well as this crew has is pretty damn cool in my books. As well, these are all pretty cool people who you rarely hear a bad word from. Still, these are just some hollywood people who, at the end of the day are probably best left as the characters we see on the screen (for their happiness as well as ours).
So, these 2 were doing the Master Cleanse (according to Demi, for its purported health benefits, not weight loss), which in and of itself is a pretty good indicator of tremendous lack of judgment. Why? Because there is no evidence of health benefits from the master cleanse and there are serious concerns with liquid fasts lasting as long as 10 days (here is an overview). Anyone who follows anecdotal advice, and bizarre testimonials that say things like, ‘I feel healthier’, with no scientific evidence that there is ANY benefit at all is either massively uninformed or puts way too little value in scientific evidence. Seriously the Master Cleanse is a terrible way to lose weight and a worse way to get healthy!
Detoxification is an energy-requiring process that puts a metabolic burden on the body.Therefore, water or juice fasts are not beneficial because they deplete the body of the essential nutrients required for healthy detoxification. These fasts can have many adverse health effects, including decreased energy production, breakdown of lean tissue instead of fat, increased oxidativestress, and unbalanced detoxification.
This quote above is from the article cited just above it. This is important to note because this quote comes directly from the science to support the ‘Clean Program’ by Dr. Alejandro Junger.
What is the Clean program, this program that Ashton and Demi have moved to? It is a diet and fast program that involves drinking 2 shakes, taking a bunch of pills and eating one meal a day (here). What does it cost to get on this bandwagon? Before I tell you the price, I do want to mention that Ashton and Demi are not the first celebrities to share with us their adherence to the Clean program. No, long before Demi and Ashton, there was Gwenyth Paltrow. As much as I like The Kutcher-Moore-Willis’s, I love Gwenyth Paltrow. She is a ray of sunlight in an otherwise bland world. She was the star of Shakespeare in Love and clearly the ideal muse to make me imagine that the bard himself did look upon Gwenyth’s countenance before putting quill to paper…. All of this said, apparently she is a little less rational in her decision making processes to say the least. I hear that she has the strangest, most unscientific beliefs on toxins and the environment. Many of her blog postings are so full of mysticism and anecdotal statements that it is impossible to take her seriously. In any case, I still love you Gwenyth and I am pretty sure that I could tune out your ridiculous statements for a week or two while we vacation in the south of France, drinking Kale juice and grazing on organic Wheat Grass. I got a kick out of looking at Gwenyth’s routine when she is getting in shape (here). Kale juice, Think Thin bars, Clean Shakes, Raw Organic Kombucha juice… LMAO!! Sure, this is one way you can get in shape, one bizarre difficult way… (by the way, Kombucha is hilarious. I ‘received a DVD and book on Kombucha at the drug store awhile back and laughed my way through the absurd claims of this ‘wonder’ fungi).
So, to get back on topic, the Clean 21 day program will set you back $350 plus shipping!! $350!!!!
I went to the website and checked out, ‘How Does It Work?’ to find out, well, how it works. Don’t bother doing this because it tells you not how it works, but just how to follow the ‘cleanse’. You can find a section on the science behind this program if you click around. It is here.
Funny thing though. There is no science for this $350 program. The closest thing to scientific support for this cleanse, detox… whatever, is this:
The following articles scientifically support the basic principles of detox that the Clean Program is based upon.
So, there is no scientific evidence whatsoever that the clean program does what it tries to do, but there is some evidence that the clean program is based upon sound principles. Okay, lets see what they have to say. There are 2 studies listed in this section:
The Role of Detoxification in the Prevention of Chronic Degenerative Diseases
and
Acid-Alkaline Balance: Role In Chronic Disease and Detoxification
The first article suggests that toxicity in our environment, food, pesticides and heavy metals are connected to diseases like Parkinson’s and cancers. As well, these toxins are most commonly removed by the body through a 2 stage process. This process is optimally achieved when you have a diet of balanced macronutrients (fats, proteins and carbohydrates), micronutrients (vitamins and minerals), and phytochemicals (natural chemical compounds found in plants). The article specifically recommends against fasting and juices as methods to detoxify the body because it inhibits the bodies natural ability to do just that.
Not only is none of this shocking, but it actually supports claims that eating meals that are balanced in macronutrients and have large amounts of vegetables and fruits are actually the best way to detoxify the body, not this bizarre pill and shake combination by Dr. Junder. It is a long scientific paper though, so maybe he was hoping nobody would read it.
The second study is ridiculous. Quacks and pseudo-scientists have been promoting the Acid-Alkaline Balance diets for ages now, but there is no science behind this. In the article listed above, the authors suggest that foods are higher in acidity now then they were in the past and then suggest that:
Although it is not common, blood pH levels can shift to the side of excessive acidity or alkalinity, in which case several clinical symptoms will appear.
This connection is intended to make you think that the diet we eat leads to our blood being out of its natural pH level, but the truth is, blood pH levels shifting out of balance is not common at all, as they admit, in fact it is associated with serious diseases totally unrelated to our diet.
The first article is written by a doctor by the way, and does appear quite scientific, even if it only suggests exactly what we already now, eating a balanced diet is good for your health. This second article is written by a nutritionist and a PhD.
Something that jumps out at me though, is that both the nutritionist and the PhD work for Metagenics Inc. Why this jumps out at me is that after a little searching into DeAnn J Liska’s biography, the doctor who wrote the first of the two articles, I find that she too worked for Metagenics. She now works for Kellogg’s which moves her up on my most hated doctors list. In fact:
DeAnn J Liska is director of nutrition science at The Kellogg Co., where she is responsible for research and science on health benefits of products and product ingredients, as well as review of the science and substantiation behind novel ingredients and health benefit claims.
This means she could be the doctor responsible for the claims that 3 grams of fibre in Froot Loops now makes it a child doctor favorite for good health. Wow, I am going to write her a letter and ask, but in the meantime, let’s look at this Metagenic’s connection.
A little more poking around on the website shows that Metagenic’s is the manufacturer of the Clean Program. The website claims:
- A medical professional created the Clean Program.
- We are in the health business, not thesupplement business.
I think they are saying that the program was created by Dr. Junger and the program is in the Health business, not the supplement business, but now I am wondering if this is true. After all, Metagenic’s is in the Supplement business, not the health business. Is it possible that the Clean Program was developed by Metagenic’s and they have put their product behind the smiling and handsome face of Dr. Junger. If this is the case it is well hidden. The website is owned by Clean Partners llc, which is headed by Dr. Junger, so it is entirely possible that Dr. Junger picked Metagenic’s because he liked their theories and their manufacturing process.
Metagenic’s is a NSF certified manufacturing facility. This means that their product is inspected on occasion to make sure that the product in the package matches what the package says. As well, they are NPA certified which means that they comply with the FDA and allow inspections of their facility. These are both huge improvements over the uncertified supplement businesses that hide behind the DSHEA. If you are going to take supplements, make sure that they are NSF certified! Still, I was wondering. I read this article in our local paper recently:
This article lists problems with herbal remedies that aren’t certified for sale in Canada. Problems ranging from high levels of unhealthy bacteria, to high levels of lead, arsenic and mercury. That got me to thinking about this certification that the Clean program goes though (via Metagenics). What are acceptable levels of lead and mercury? Are there any?
The process of distilling nutrients into pills and powders will by its very nature aggregate miniscule amounts of heavy metals and toxins into comparatively large amounts. Although this product is certified, I would love to see what an independent analysis of these pills and powders would show up. Are there acceptable levels of toxins, just as there are acceptable levels of rat droppings? Can we see the toxin levels that have been randomly tested for in these pills? Will Metagenics release this information to its consumers?
So at the end of the day, this detox and cleanse has no more scientific basis than the Master Cleanse. Still I am left with a bunch of questions. First, I wonder how clean, the Clean program is? Second, I wonder if this is the brainchild and implementation of a large supplement company or an individual doctor. Finally, are we really just sheople? Will we believe in an unscientific program if some high profile celebrities decide to try it?
I ask this question because the traffic to the Clean website went up thousands of times its pre-tweet levels-since the Ashton-Demi tweet. If you guys (Demi or Ashton) are reading this blog posting, please feel free to tweet that you are going on the ‘You Are Not A Fit Person’ program, or anything that mentions my name, even veiled insults and hateful thoughts (alas, as I pointed out earlier, this is rather unlikely as you guys do seem to be pretty nice people, just my luck!!).
Thanks.
Even Penelope Cruz agrees with me!
I hate Pop Culture Magazines part 6
According to every gossip and celebrity website around, Penelope Cruz “would close down all those teenage magazines that encourage young girls to diet.”
In fact she goes on to say:
Who says that to be pretty you have to be thin? Some people look better thin and some don’t. There is almost a standard being created where only thin is acceptable. The influence of those magazines on girls as young as 13 is horrific.
See, even Penelope Cruz gets it! So does Ms. Magazine. I wonder does Bachelorette Ali get it?
I guess not. She is trying out the Ol’ Kim Kardashian revenge technique. I am sure whoever she is getting back at will be as heartbroken as Reggie Bush was… Poor guys. Still, It isn’t like Kim was done hurting people with her body after she devastated Reggie. Now she is in a full fledged war with her sister…. Will the carnage never end!??! Will Kim never learn to use her body to heal instead of hurt?!!?!? I am just glad that we have a magazine that can expose to the world these potentially dangerous behaviors and warn us not to follow suit… oh… wait a minute, they are actually giving you instructions on how to get the Ali revenge body?!!? This recklessness can not be condoned. Men all over the world are going to be injured from this massive revenge movement by women… Damn you OK magazine! Damn you….
You have got to try these ‘granola’ bars
Recommendation for you
Oh man, I just had one of these Quaker ‘Caramel and Nut’ bars yesterday and it is so good!! I only had about 45 minutes before swimming last night and I had missed my evening meal. I knew I had to get some energy into my body before swimming or I would be flagging towards the end, yet I couldn’t eat anything too hard to digest or I would risk throwing up. In the end I went for the granola bar and what a great choice it was!!
I was expecting one of those bastard hybrids that satisfies no one. You know, the kind that are too crunchy and fibrous to be good and too sweet and chocolate covered to be healthy, but boy was I surprised to find out how wrong I was. These ‘granola’ bars were the tastiest candy bars I have ever had. They were the perfect blend of chocolate and caramel and puffed rice cereal and not too much nut. You know how the O’Henry chocolate bar has just too much nut to really be a candy bar? Not this treat, just a smidgen of diced nuts. I am craving one right now as I write this. How lucky I was to find a whole box of these things in the cupboard too, right in there with the lunch and snack choices. I am not sure why candy bars are in the food cupboard, but boy did that ever workout well for me.
Recommendation for your kids
If you want a candy bar, I cannot recommend enough that you reach for a Quaker brand candy bar. If you are looking for a healthy snack to feed kids though, this isn’t it. You would need to have your head examined if you thought this was a healthy choice for a kid. This is a candy bar, pure and simple. You may as well give your kids a lollipop for a toothbrush and serve them a milkshake with their chocolate chip pancakes at breakfast.
This is a healthy snack for your kids if you live in Candyland and every day is Halloween. This is just the kind of snack you would pick for your children if you were the witch in Hansel and Grettle and you were fattening your kids up so you could eat them later. If you want to see what it looks like for a child to sweat palm oil and crap out sugar cubes, then this is the ‘healthy snack for you’. I hope I am being clear enough about whether or not you should be feeding this healthy granola snack to your kids.
You see, that is my problem with Quaker. They mix and match healthy products with unhealthy products and don’t really want you to question which is which. They ‘extend their brand’ from healthy rolled oats to candy bars and hope that the goodwill and reputation for health will extend to keep you buying their products. At the end of the day though, whether it is good business or not, it is plain deceptive. They call these things snack bars. They are candy bars. They call them chewy granola and maybe some of them are really just that (although many of them aren’t), but chewy granola isn’t a very healthy food item.
We all think that granola is healthy, but this is one of those questions of what we mean by healthy. Granola is rolled oats (excellent), nuts (good for you but high calories), raisins and honey (a type of sugar). It turns out this is a very calorie dense food, which is terrible for weightloss, but on the other hand it is an excellent, and quite often natural and relatively raw food choice, for fueling your body so you can exercise more. In fact that is what we most often associate granola with (according to wikipedia):
Besides serving as food for breakfast and/or snacks, granola is also often eaten by those who are hiking, camping, or backpacking due to the fact that it is lightweight, high in calories, and easy to store; these properties make it similar to trail mix and muesli. It is often combined into a bar form.
So, granola is a great food to snack on when you are hiking or camping. It is great when you need a quick pick up from the sugar and a little bit of lasting energy to complete whatever task you are doing. It isn’t good though when you are trying to lose weight. I am referring to home made granola here, or a trailmix, essentially the mix I list above.
Whatever the hell Quaker is putting in their box of chewy granola bars is so far from granola I am surprised they are allowed to use that name.
Look at the ingredients in this box:
How many different versions of sugar do you count in this list? I have 12!?!??! Both Milk Chocolate and Caramel show up as ingredients before oats!! This isn’t making oatmeal palatable to kids, this is turning oats into candy.
If you had any doubt about the healthfulness of this product, think about the nutritional panel:
Let’s compare this to a O’Henry bar:
Quaker Bar:
- Size: 34g
- Calories: 160
- Fat: 6g
- Sugar: 15g
O’Henry:
- Size: 57g
- Calories: 263
- Fat: 13.1g
- Sugar: 26.3g
If I adjust the O’Henry for size:
34 grams of O’Henry:
- Size: 34g
- Calories: 156
- Fat: 7.8g
- Sugar: 15.6g
Kids Quaker snack bar or candy bar… you pick.
On a closing note, what gave away to me just how bad these are is the calorie density. Candy bars have one of the worst calorie densities of any foods at around 5. If you see a calorie density of above 3 you know it is a poor choice for weightloss. (To calculate calorie density divide the number of calories by the number of grams in the product). In this case, the calorie density was 4.7! That is massive! That is candy bar territory. Straight butter has a calorie density of 7 and cooking oil, which is straight energy comes in at the highest end of the scale at 8.8. In ‘You Are Not A Fit Person’ there is a chart comparing calorie densities of food that will help you to understand what you should and shouldn’t be eating if you want to lose weight.
NOTE: I have been sitting on this blog entry for a week, not wanting to post it. After writing it, I decided that it really was too harsh and I didn’t like the spirit of it. I am guessing I could use a vacation because I normally can write about people ripping other people off without getting too upset… but just how bad this product is upsets me. In any case I will post it here and please comment if you think I am going too far.
I am not a huge fan of fitness video games. I don’t think that they will be very helpful to many people, but instead a bit of a gimmick that you won’t stick with and will become more discouraged. I love the idea of fitness video games (as I have been a recovering video game addict my entire adult life), and there are many compelling components to these games that make them exciting, like progressing through levels, timing exercises and varying your workout and tracking statistics.
That said, there are numerous problems. The first problem is that there isn’t enough of a sensor system to make this work, and there may never be. Seriously how are we going to measure if your plank is right, or your push ups? The second problem is that the motivation isn’t very strong. A computerized person saying, ‘come on, you can do it’ will never compare to a real person standing there, who really knows what you can do. Also, video games seem like fun so we want to do them, but fitness is hard so this combination really doesn’t work well together and the current batch of fitness games isn’t a lot of fun. Finally, you are much more likely to stick with fitness if it gets you out and into new social situations, something that won’t happen with videogames.
Still, if you are the kind of person who does workout and get fit with an exercise video, then video games offer a little bit more customization and control than a video, so for some people they might be an excellent fit. As well, they will probably progress tremendously over the next few years, maybe plugging into treadmills and bikes, allowing for more controllers than just the balance board.
Apparently what won’t work for anyone though, is Jillian Michaels Fitness Ultimatum 2009… Yes, according to Kotaku.com, who has been monitoring usage of Wii games for the last few years, Jillian Michaels Fitness Ultimatum is the least played game on the Wii. It is clocking in with less than 2 hours per user. Given the number of sales of this product, it looks like no one is using this product after they get it home and out of the box.
The reviews of this game are terrible. It has one star on CNet, with comments like ‘Horribly BORING!!!’, ‘I want my money back’, and ‘Horrible do not buy’. This game is terrible on an unimaginable level, but you never know with reviews if people are, at the end of the day, playing it or not. Apparently it is a lot more of the latter and a lot less of the former.
There are some disclaimers here. First and foremost, the methodology that they use for tracking is explained here. Second, some games get such little play or sell so few copies that they don’t even make the reported usage numbers from Nintendo (apparently somewhere around 50,000 hours). I am guessing that is the case with Fitness Ultimatum 2010, which the best thing that anyone appears to say about it is that it is better than the 2009 offering. As well, these statistics come from users who have hooked their system up to the Nintendo network, so the numbers will be biased towards online fighting games. Still, don’t think that means that fitness games won’t rank highly. Wi Fit has, as of July 1st, a per-player playing time of 21 hours and 57 minutes!!
Fitness Ultimatum 2009 is liked and used 1/10 as much as Wi Fit… What this means is that if you are likely to get fit using an exercise video game, Wi Fit looks like a pretty good choice.
I hate to say it, but this is exactly what happens when your sign your name to licensing deal after licensing deal without a care for the people who follow her or buy her products (I really don’t hate to say this at all, actually I quite enjoy it). I would like to say she is a one person licensing machine, sucking every possible dollar from her adoring public for whatever piece of crap she can slap a branding sticker on, but this would be entirely disingenuous. Empowered Media, Jillian Michaels company is actually helmed by Giancarlo Chersich, a licensing expert, so there are at least two people behind this plundering of Jillian Michaels brand name for profit. Seriously, if you are about to release a product like this, why wouldn’t you just halt release until it is improved?
I have already railed against the magic pills that she is selling, right in the face of written evidence that she thinks pills like this are crap, or, at least, she did before she started selling them. She has licensed this terrible video game, she has a new TV show, she is licensing shoes, an exercise machine and apparently a ‘Wellness Cruise’. According to Giancarlo Cherisch, the cruise “encompasses all aspects of our brand philosophy. It will embody Jillian’s core messaging as well as introduce key experts that compliment and broaden the scope of our brand.” Hmm… the guy really sounds like he cares about the suckers exercisers who are going on this cruise, and not about his brand… after all, he can’t use a full sentence without fitting in the word brand…
With the pills, Jillian Michaels claimed she searched out the best doctors in the world to develop her unique pills and that is why she never recommended anyone ever take pills before, because her pills hadn’t yet been invented. I wonder, did she say the same thing about the video game. Did she search out the greatest developers known to man, and only when they had created the greatest game ever did she agree to put her name on it… That doesn’t appear too likely.
If I could, I would implore Jillian to stop this reckless branding, tell her that people are really getting hurt, but I can’t because Jillian and I aren’t talking to each other any longer (after I exposed Dr. Nathalie Chevreau as a Basic Research spokesperson..). Maybe someone else can ask her to stop extending her brand and stick with what she does best, motivating people to get fit. She does do that very well.
You have got to be kidding me…
The other day the kids and I were rummaging through the fridge looking for breakfast fixings and there was nothing to eat. No milk for cereal, no eggs, no bread, no ham, no nothing… The kids wanted to go to Denny’s for breakfast, and after some serious debate I agreed.
The thing is, my kids think Denny’s is a fine dining establishment, and I am not about to disabuse them of that belief. I think this is all my fault though. They must have overheard me telling the following story and not gotten the point of it:
When we were young we lived in a neighborhood with a lot of very rich people. We were not rich, not even close. We were a middle class, hand to mouth kind of family. The one thing we did do a fair amount though, was dine out (back then dining out once a week was a fair amount, nowadays that is the exact opposite, where dining in once a week is about normal). My parents have always had great taste, and being they emigrated to Vancouver from the US back when Vancouver had a small restaurant scene, they enjoyed keeping up on all of the great restaurants here. I remember eating at Umberto’s, Il Giardino, Hy’s Mansion, Peppi’s, Il Patio, and so on. As a kid, it was just dining out, I didn’t really appreciate the restaurants. I was a very picky eater too and it wasn’t like they had kids menus in these restaurants, so I would eat things like the steak or meat balls. In any case, the rich show off kid that I went to school with (I didn’t understand then that the rich show offs are very rarely as rich as the quiet rich people) would tell us of the best restaurant in the City that his parents took him to every Sunday night. He pointed it out to me and it was, surprise, the Denny’s between West and North Vancouver (Apparently, I also didn’t understand that everyone didn’t have good taste-although his fathers red velour suits and tricked out yellow Porsche with oversized whale tail should have given that away, even to a kid in grade 2).
I had never eaten there, and I told my parents about this and how much I would love to go there. Of course they just smirked and never let me in on the joke, so for years I thought Denny’s was the fanciest restaurant around. I also discovered it was a chain!! I never ate there until my late teens as a middle of the night, drunken patron. This I repeated numerous times over the years.
So, my kids heard this story and now they think Denny’s is the best. Truth be told, to a kid it is pretty awesome. You get to keep your rocket shaped, or soccer ball shaped cup after your meal. They have great breakfasts including chocolate chip pancakes, and they have a crane game by the door. All of the ingredients of the finest restaurants for kids. So, every once in awhile we dine there. Not a big deal.
So I am reading the menu, and I quite approve of their new build your own slam menu. You can get some bacon, and eggs on toast (only eat 2 of the four half slices) and some yogurt or fruit and not do too badly. In any case, while I was pondering this, I noticed this tent card.
It took me a minute to get used to the idea of pancake puppies… pancakes are breakfast cake which is iced with butter and sugar water (syrup)… Pancakes are terrible for you… What could be worse than pancakes though… deep fried pancakes! It was then that it dawned on me. Donuts are deep fried cake, so these are simply donut holes… Pancake Puppies are donut holes. Okay. I would never feed my kids donut holes for breakfast, and these donut holes come with a syrup dip…
But these aren’t just pancake puppies, these are a whole new variety of pancake puppies. These are filled with fruit (not whole fruit I am sure, but sugar soaked frozen fruit bits) and white chocolate chips and then rolled in icing sugar… Is there some form of additional sugaring that these guys are missing? Should they be airbrushing on a sugary coating? Dipping them in an M&M’s style crunchy sugar coating before you dip them in the watery sugar coating (syrup)? Maybe they could tie a couple of sugar cubes onto these…
People, these aren’t breakfast foods. If you have kids and you want to take them to Denny’s for breakfast, go for it. Have them order the Jr. Grand Slam. It is 380 Calories and it should fill them up. Order it with milk or water, never pop. Denny’s menu is a bit of a minefield to be honest, with some excellent choices and some disastrous ones. You can download the nutritional information for their menu here. If you are really serious about getting fit, you should make yourself the following promise:
I will not eat in any restaurant that I have not gone over the nutritional information for.
It is a good rule to live by.
Shame on you Denny’s for going too far in the kids breakfast food treats. There really is some expectation on restaurants to not put the dessert items in with the food items. I don’t know how to make you people understand this or follow this rule, because it is just such common sense. Keep the deserts on a separate page please. I am sorry that you feel that it is okay to go this far in marketing terrible food choices to children just to make a little more money. If you weren’t aware though people, this is part of the reason we are fat. We have gone a long ways down a slippery nutritional slope between eating mostly food we knew was nutritious with a little bit of sweet dessert at the end, to eating foodstuffs that are desserts dressed up as meals. So far in fact that we have a hard time finding healthy choices in restaurants nowadays.
Thanks Denny’s for exploiting this condition to make a few bucks…
Pop Tarts or Fruit Crisps…
A recent tweet regarding the Fruit Crisps and Pop Tarts from Special K had me look up the nutritional information for each of these products. They are part of the Special K Challenge Scam that Kellogg’s is running on us (read more here). The thing is, my wife buys these things and they taste great. I noticed right away that they do taste just like a pop tart, just a little less ‘frostingy’ and a little more ‘jammy’. The other thing I noticed right away is that they are very small… disturbingly small… Small like I have gigantic hands small. I am not used to this experience of my hands holding such small objects that it makes them look huge 
In any case, I consider these lilliputian pop tarts. Still, I figured with the reduced icing, maybe they are better for you than pop tarts… When I saw this tweet, I figured I would check pop tarts and Fruit Crisps and see if my theory that these are just small part tarts was true:
I AM IM LOVE WITH SPECIAL K FRUIT CRISPS!! <33 They taste EXACTLY like pop tarts but they’re 30 calories!
Here is what I discovered:
That is how small the Lilliputian pop tarts are by the way. 8 of them are 2 pop tarts. Kellogg’s wants you to think that this is the strength in these items, that they are so small you won’t get fat eating them. The problem is though, that you won’t get full either. The serving size for the Fruit Crisps is almost exactly half the serving size for Pop Tarts. Is Kellogg’s suggesting that by printing a serving size half as large as a regular serving size, their foods suddenly become diet foods…
We all know that Pop Tarts are some of the least healthful food products on earth. They are sweetened jam on pie crust with a sugary icing topping. There really is nothing good about them. If the best you can say about a food is that you really shouldn’t eat one serving, then you should change what you are eating. The thing is though, I don’t mind that Pop Tarts are terrible for you and still for sale. I am glad. Every once in awhile I buy a box and have some. I like cake from time to time too, along with a good night of drunken debauchery. None of these things are good for you, and hopefully no one is telling you that these are good ways to lose weight.
On a side note, I am always disappointed with Pop Tarts because they are old school bad for you. Kellogg’s skimps on the jam. I guess over the years dessert items have just gotten richer and more flavorful and gooey and Pop Tarts haven’t changed. I have never had a Toaster Strudel, but it appears they got the memo on the unimpressive taste of the Pop Tart because their product is ooier and gooier (at least according to their taste tests). Hell, about half the pastries in the counter at Starbuck’s have more icing and jammy filling than Pop Tarts.
In any case, before I got off topic, my point was that Pop Tarts aren’t healthy so why in the world would someone be as morally corrupt to think that selling 1/2 of a Pop Tart as a diet would be a good idea?!?! The idea behind this claim is portion control, but that is so dumb. As I have already pointed out in a past post, that is like saying the bite sized candy bars we give out at halloween are a diet food. I guess if I was sitting in a cell in prison and I was just given one packet of the Fruit Crisps, or one half of a Pop Tart, then I would have some portion control, but the odds of me just eating one packet and then stopping in any situation in which I have free will are zero to none! If I was able to walk away after having just one bite of something tasty I WOULD NOT BE IN THIS SITUATION IN THE FIRST PLACE!! I would already be a fit person! It isn’t like I could take just one stick from a Kit Kat bar if there was one in the cupboard and put the rest back. Even when you wrap them separately like they do in the new ‘singles’ marketing campaign, I am still going to eat all of the sticks in the cupboard. The bar at least might have made me feel bad when I finished it and started fishing around for another one, there really is no reason not keep at the singles until the box is empty, and I won’t feel bad either until I start fishing around for another box.
Here is a message to all of the people marketing their ASS food as healthy because it is portion controlled (small & individually wrapped):
Dear Food Product Manufacturer,
The wrapper on a package is an infinitesimally small barrier to me actually consuming what is inside. When you package up bad foods into ‘portion’ sizes, where portion size refers to how little of that product I should eat, and then you sell multiple ‘portions’ in a box, you are just wasting natural resources (packaging), my patience, and space on this planet (packaging waste), because I am going to eat most of the ‘portions’ in the box in one sitting. If your portion size is 6 chips or 25 grams of Pop Tart, yet no one person has ever ONLY consumed the portion size you recommend, you need to re-evaluate what you call a portion. This situation is only compounded when you decide to reduce the portion size further so you can falsely claim you are selling a diet food and in the end the packaging weighs more than the product. What next, diet butter, sold in chilled ‘portions’ the size of chocolate chip. On the subject of chocolate chips, how about individually wrapping your chocolate chips and calling them diet ‘kisses’?
Sincerely,
Mark Vaughan
Kellogg’s recall
Apparently Kellogg’s has been having some packaging problems. According to the NYDailyNews.com:
Kellogg Co. is voluntarily recalling about 28 million boxes of Apple Jacks, Corn Pops, Froot Loops and Honey Smacks cereals because a “waxy” smell and flavor coming from the package liners could make people sick, the company said Friday.
Kellogg spokeswoman J. Adaire Putnam said about 20 people have complained, including five who reported nausea and vomiting. The company said the potential for serious health problems associated with the cereal is low.
Putnam said the lining of the cereals’ boxes produced the off flavor and odor. Kellogg is trying to identify the substance on the liner that’s causing the problem.
The products were distributed throughout the U.S. and began arriving in stores in late March.
I am certainly not going to jump on Kellogg’s for poor packaging, nor jump on them for creating ‘manufactured’ foods. This can happen to any company it appears, as it happened to Tylenol recently. Certainly it would be hard to count the many fresh foods such as spinach and lettuce and organic foods have been recalled recently. No, the purpose of this blog entry isn’t to pile on Kellogg’s for their packaging leeching into the foods and making kids sick, instead it is to continue to pile on to Kellogg’s regarding their totally unhealthy breakfast cereals…
I was sitting here and my brother brought up the thought that 28 million boxes of cereal is an awful lot of cereal, but how much sugar is it?
Well, based on an average box size of 15 ounces (averaged I assume between family packs and regular packs), that means that there is 200 grams of sugar in one box (14.8 grams of sugar per serving, 15 servings per box[using corn pops as the standard])… Okay that number just stuns me. Almost a half a pound of sugar in each box (.44 pounds). Assuming there are no math errors so far, the rest is easy to calculate. Kellogg’s is recalling 5.6 billion grams of sugar! Billion! That is so much sugar that it would take over 190 dump trucks heaped full to bring back just the sugar and dispose of it. What a day for the sugar companies (assuming they aren’t also owned by Kellogg’s). They also have to bring back and dispose of about as much starch, a complex carbohydrate that easily breaks down into a simple one, and about a pickup truck or two of fibre and protein.
I cannot put enough emphasis on how bad most cereals are for us. In any case, I don’t have to. I love infographics, and here is an interesting one, along with a comparison between the marketing of cereals to children and adults. The fact I find most alarming is that only Auto-Manufacturers spend more on advertising than cereal manufactures. Actually, that is something that I have seen a lot lately. Is it just me, or is about every 3rd ad on television about food? Bad foods too, burgers, fries, cereals, snacks… I don’t mean to suggest that personal responsibility doesn’t matter, but what if food companies have noticed that they can create an impulse in us to buy and eat incredibly tasty and unhealthy foods, just by showing us pictures… Do you think that could be possible…. Even if it was, I can’t imagine that the food companies would be so greedy as to make us fatter and unhealthier just to make a few bucks… right… More on the advertising thing later, right now I want to talk about this sugar thing.
According to that last website, a bowl of cereal has more sugar than a jam doughnut. This tells me two things. One, this website must be located in the UK because we call them jelly doughnuts here, and two, there may be a place on earth that actually uses jam in doughnuts, rather than the red sugar liquid that we use. I am actually curious to know what real jam inside a doughnut would taste like. We really shouldn’t be allowed to call our jelly doughnuts, jelly doughnuts either. Jelly requires some history of fruit, some connection other than say the color, Cherry Red. Still, according to this website, a Jam filled doughnut has around 2/3 the sugar of a bowl of Kellogg’s Frosties (hint #2 that they are from the UK). Around here, the numbers are quite different though. If we use Dunkin’ Doughnuts as the standard of a Jelly Doughnut, and Frosted Flakes as the standard of a sugary cereal, we actually have 6 grams of sugar in a Jelly doughnut, and 12 grams of sugar in a serving of frosted flakes… Seriously… I don’t know how this is possible, but our doughnuts contain HALF the sugar as one little bowl of kids cereal… All of this is cute and beside the point because both of these are terrible breakfast items and you really shouldn’t be eating either. More importantly though, I don’t want David Zinczenko logging on here and suggesting that you should eat this-Jelly Doughnut-and not that-Frosted Flakes, because he does not understand the different between ‘good and bad’ and ‘bad and worse’… Before I move on though, I checked out the ingredients in that Jelly doughnut filling and here is what I discovered:
Corn Syrup, Water, High Fructose Corn Syrup, Sugar Syrup, Apple Juice Concentrate, Pectin, Contains 2% or less of each of the following: Pectin, Citric Acid Potassium Sorbate and Sodium Benzoate (Preservatives), Locust Bean Gum, Sodium Citrate, Red 40, Blue 2 and Caramel Color, Artificial Flavor; Shortening: Palm Oil, Partially Hydrogenated Soybean Oil and Partially Hydrogenated Cottonseed Oil with TBHQ and Citric Acid added to help protect flavor
The closest thing to fruit this thing has is a little concentrated apple juice. This comes after 3 different types of sugar in the first 3 ingredients… This too has the TBHQ… how innocuous it sounds… I like it when they call my tertiary butylhydroquinone by its real name, tertiary butylhydroquinone. I am sure though, it is relatively harmless compared to the Red 40. If you don’t like the name of TBHQ, you should check out Red 40 and see what is going on with that petroleum product… yes, I said petroleum product…that we are eating…
When it comes to kids cereals, I guess this quote sums it up best:
“Industry self-regulation is an abject failure,” says Kelly Brownell, director of the Rudd Center. “The worst cereals are being marketed very heavily to children.” He presents the analysis today(10/27/2009) in Washington at the annual meeting of the Obesity Society.
According to this USA today article, Kid’s cereals contain 85% more sugar and 65% less fiber than adults’. Wow… that is bad. In fact, some other things jump out in this article:
- The average preschooler sees 642 TV cereal ads a year; most are for types with the worst nutrition ratings. Cereal companies spend more than $156 million a year marketing to children.
- Cereal companies have websites that are wildly popular with children such as the millsberry.com site from General Mills.
- Some of the products with the poorest nutrition ratings have health claims on the boxes.
- Cereal companies have made pledges to self-regulate, but those promises “have not shielded kids from the barrage of messages” to eat the least healthful products, the report says.
In fact:
In a related study, Yale researchers tracked 89 children, ages 5 to 12, who made their own breakfasts at summer camps. Kids were given either a box of sweetened cereal such as Frosted Flakes, Froot Loops and Cocoa Pebbles, or a box of a low-sugar cereal such as Corn Flakes, Cheerios, Rice Krispies. They could take as much as they wanted of cereal, milk, sugar, orange juice, bananas and strawberries. Results:
•Kids given the low-sugar cereal ate about one serving or one cup. A serving varied from ¾ cup to 1 ¼ cup depending on the weight of the product.
•Those eating the high-sugar type ate two servings or about two cups.
•Children rated the taste of both types equally high.
•Kids eating the low-sugar brands added some sugar but still ate about half as much sugar and far fewer calories than the other kids and were more likely to put fruit on top.
“Part of getting kids to eat more fruit at breakfast is not having it compete with Froot Loops or another high-sugar cereal,” says Marlene Schwartz, deputy director of the Rudd Center.
Certainly, when it comes to eating sweet cereals, I think the parents have to take responsibility for their kids and their future. We, the consumers, the ones who are buying these products have to force companies such as Kellogg’s and General Mills to stop advertising to our children. We can do this. When I think of the advertising dollars spent on kids tv to get our children to eat their sugary cereals, it reminds me of a Saturday Night Live skit where the advertiser asks kids to get their parents out of the room before he goes on. It really is an attempt to get at our kids when we turn our backs. When I think of what corporate shits these companies are, it makes me very angry… I guess it makes me want to ask these people who sit on the boards of these companies, ‘what limits do you have when it comes to making a dollar?’ Is it that they are unaware of what they are doing, just the proverbial stooge continuing to do business as usual, or are they just immune to feelings of wrongdoing and guilt?
Parents, don’t think for a second that breakfast cereals are healthy. If you are going to feed any to your children make sure they are low in sugar and high in fiber. If you think the battle to keep your kids from eating this crap is tough, the battle to get these companies to back off will be even tougher. The news of Kellogg’s having to throw out over 5 million kilograms of sugar didn’t even cause a tick on the stock value. Everyone knows just how hooked we are on their sugar fix. Sugar is cheap. An addicted public though, that is worth a mint to these people…
I love how in the opening quote the company says, “the potential for serious health problems associated with the cereal is low.” Of course they didn’t mean the long term potential for serious health problems, just the immediate threat. The long term looks pretty bad, obesity, heart disease, diabetes…
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