The majority of the time, corporations feed the bulk of Americans. True, the demand for organic and local produce is on the rise, but far and away the largest segment of supermarket purchases in this country is pre-packaged, processed food. Not potatoes, but boxes of dehydrated, chemically-treated au gratin. Not avocado, but plastic containers (or tubes!) of stabilized, preserved “guacamole,” which, in one case, is only two-percent avocado.
Helping serve the processed food giants are the usual suspects: scientists, along with trade associations, lobbyists and public relations specialists who grease the wheels for favors and deregulation and help pull the wool over our shelf-scanning eyes. Their power over our government has left not just their pockets bulging, but the bellies, backs and buttocks of our obese, diabetic, sugar-injected nation.
In Appetite for Profit: How The Food Industry Undermines Our Health and How To Fight Back, public health attorney and health policy lecturer Michele Simon studies the anatomy of food corporations and tells us why they can’t be trusted. She covers a range of topics, from nutrition labeling in restaurants, to how food giants distort the health benefits of their assembly line products and trick parents and school administrators into feeding our children garbage.
The food industry is in a better position to educate consumers than anyone else.
—Cal Dooley, Food Products Association
You could easily be thinking, as you walk down the supermarket aisle, that the snack sections have been transformed into an oasis of whole-grain natural potato chips, granola bars and wheatberry juice. Have you tried those Whole Grain Chips Ahoy cookies? They are good for you now. Did you realize that Cheetos Jumbo Puffs Flamin’ Hot Cheese Flavored Snacks are trans fat free? Aren’t you relieved your children are now drinking soft drinks that provide proper hydration?
That’s how the big food corporations want you to feel as they bathe their products in the warm, fuzzy glow of health-themed marketing and PR. I call their efforts “nutriwashing.”
Mounting awareness that out-of-control junk food consumption may have something to do with obesity and other diet-related public health problems has sent shivers down the spines of corporate food makers. Up until a few years ago, the products of industry giants like Kraft Foods, Frito-Lay and General Mills—fixtures in household cupboards and lunch pails across the nation—enjoyed relatively squeaky-clean reputations.
Setting their PR machines into overdrive, the few large firms dominating today’s increasingly consolidated food market are attempting to burnish their corporate images and protect their bottom lines against the nagging perception that something is amiss.
General Mills Cereals: the Whole Grain Chutzpah Award
General Mills is a top seller of children’s cereals, with annual sales of more than $1 billion. On the heels of the dietary guidelines update in January 2005, the company announced (with much fanfare) the launch of reformulated “whole grain” versions of its cereals. To ensure maximum “point-of purchase” visibility, the boxes were plastered with huge “whole grain” banners. The corporation’s self-congratulatory take on its product makeovers was clear at a 2005 Federal Trade Commission meeting on food marketing and childhood obesity. Here Kendall Powell, a General Mills vice president, spoke glowingly of the nutritional advantages afforded by the revamped products: “Obesity,” he said, “is about calories and cereal is a low-calorie way to start the day.” Of course, good nutrition isn’t only about calories; it’s also about the actual nutrients (or lack thereof) in the food.
Apparently, no cereal is too absurd for General Mills to label “whole grain.” Conspicuously absent from Powell’s dog and pony show were mentions of General Mills cereals aimed at children, such as Whole Grain Reese’s Puffs, Whole Grain Cookie Crisps, Whole Grain Cocoa Puffs, Whole Grain Lucky Charms and Whole Grain Chocolate Lucky Charms. And no wonder, given that Lucky Charms, for instance, is composed of whole-grain oats, sugar, canola oil and marshmallows, which are made up of sugar, corn starch, corn syrup, dextrose, gelatin, two yellow dyes, blue dye, red dye and artificial flavor. But just in case you, concerned parent, were beginning to suspect that “nutrition” is not actually lurking somewhere in this bewildering morass of ingredients, a “whole grain” banner is draped prominently across the Lucky Charms box for your edification and convenience.
How then does General Mills explain this “sugary whole grain” contradiction? The company argues that high sugar content is basically unimportant, given the products’ overall nutritional benefits. Here’s how Marybeth Thorsgaard, a General Mills spokesperson, justified it to me: “Even with presweetened cereals, there really is no better breakfast your child could eat in the morning. Presweetened cereals account for less than 5 percent of your sugar for the entire day, but because it’s fortified and nutritionally dense for the amount of calories, there really is no better breakfast that your child could eat.”
Using the corporate-speak term “presweetened” makes it sound as if the added sugar occurs naturally. And no better breakfast? Compared to what? Starving? Marion Nestle, nutrition professor at New York University and author of Food Politics (Univ. of Calif. Press), is unconvinced: “It’s hard not to react sarcastically to such statements from cereal makers. I have heard them say the reason sugary cereals are good for kids is because of the milk that’s added. That, I suppose, would also be the rationale for giving kids cookies for breakfast. This is a marketing ploy to make people think that whole grain Cocoa Puffs are healthy. Sugar is still the first ingredient.”
The Hidden Dehydration Epidemic
While nutrition advocates are busy sounding alarm bells about diet-related threats to health such as obesity and diabetes, the marketers of “sports drinks” are trying to convince us that we (especially children) are imperiled by another malady altogether: severe dehydration. PepsiCo’s Gatorade—a product that has achieved near-cult status in many school athletic programs—backs up its claims about the superior hydrating capacities of the product based on “findings” of the impressive-sounding Gatorade Sports Science Institute (which is, of course, funded by the company itself). Any nutritionist not on a corporate payroll will tell you that Gatorade’s hydration claims are essentially bogus. Dietitian Melinda Hemmelgarn, for example, notes that, “Gatorade is simply sugar and water; it’s not a healthy product.” Moreover, Dr. David Ludwig, director of the obesity program at Children’s Hospital Boston, says that most studies showing a hydration benefit with sports drinks apply only to triathletes. Ludwig stressed that “kids are not triathletes” and that sports drinks would come in handy only if dehydration were suddenly to become a public health menace.
Likewise troubled by the burgeoning “thirst epidemic,” Coca-Cola has positioned its Powerade line of “high-performance” beverages—some of which ironically contain high levels of caffeine—to respond to the problem. That caffeine is a diuretic and a known cause of excessive urination and dehydration is a fact conveniently ignored.
Another popular “dehydration-relief” product is Kraft’s Capri-Sun Sport drink, an item that is marketed heavily to children. Kraft claims (right on the front of the box) that the drink “hydrates better than water.” According to the Wall Street Journal, Kraft funded a study of 29 children between the ages of nine and 12. The children exercised and on breaks were allowed to take a drink. On average, the kids drank more Capri-Sun Sport than water. I tried to track down the actual study results (which, as it turns out, have not yet been published in a peer-reviewed journal) to see if that was really how Kraft determined its drink had a nutritional benefit—simply because kids drank more Capri-Sun than water in 80-minute sessions in hot and humid weather (this is how most “sports drinks” research is conducted); in other words, under conditions that few kids of that age ever experience.
When I shared the results with Dr. Renu Mansukhani, health policy consultant with the advocacy group Parents’ Action for Children, she was unconvinced: “This study doesn’t prove that sports drinks are better at hydrating kids. The researcher’s definition of superior ‘hydration’ seems to be mainly based on the fact that children drank more Capri-Sun. But we know the reason kids drank more is because they like the taste. To say a sports drink has a true hydration benefit, they would have to study a large number of kids, do a detailed evaluation to document dehydration, and show that the child’s status improved with the sports drink.” Mansukhani says that in the average child or adult’s healthy diet, there is no role for sports drinks, and that water is best for hydration.
Excerpted from Appetite for Profit by Michele Simon (Nation Books). ©2006 by Michele Simon. Used with permission. All rights reserved. Available for purchase at independent bookstores, nationbooks.org and informedeating.org.