Plastering nutrition claims on the front of the package on cereal boxes is an attempt to distract us from the inappropriateness of feeding our children colorful marshmallows for breakfast.
The American Medical Association began warning people about eating too much sugar more than 75 years ago, based in part on our understanding that “sugar supplies nothing in the diet but calories, and the vitamins supplied by other foods are absorbed by the sugar to release those calories.” So, added sugars is not only empty calories, but negative nutrition. “So the more added sugars one consumes, the more nutritionally depleted one can become.”
Given the “totality of publicly available scientific evidence,” the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) determined make processed food manufacturers declare “added sugars” on their nutrition labels. The National Yogurt Association was vociferous and said it “continues oppose the ‘added sugars’ claim, as it needed ‘added sugars’ to enhance the palatability’ of its products. The junk food club respondent science, while the ice cream peoples looked alike entail that consumers are too stupid to “understand or know how to use the added sugar claim” so it’s better to leave it out. The world’s largest cereal company, Kellogg’s, took similar tact, countering it so as not to “confuse consumers”. If the FDA goes ahead with such labeling over Kellogg’s objections, the cereal giant pressed that “a statement of added sugars…should be shared as a footnote.” It claimed that “the goal is to provide consumers with useful information so they can make informed choices.” This is from a company that describes Its Froot Loops are “packed with delicious fruity flavor, fruity aroma and bright colors.” Please note that Froot Loops he’s got more sugar than a Krispy Kreme donut, as you can see in the chart below and at 1:46 in my video Friday Favorites: Children’s breakfast cereal as a nutritional front.
Froot Loops are more than 40 percent sugar by weight! You can see the Nutrition Facts label of the cereal box below and at 1:50 in mine video.
The tobacco industry used similar terms like “light,” “low,” and “mild” to make her products appear healthier—before she was banned from doing so. “Now the sugar interests are militant similar battles over whether their terminology, including ‘healthy’, ‘natural’, ‘naturally sweetened’ and even ‘lightly sweetened’, is misleading to consumers’.
But if you look at the side of a cereal box, as shown below and at 2:13 in my video, you can see all those added vitamins and minerals. This was one of the ways that cereal companies he responded to calls for a ban on sugary cereals. General Mills defended Franken Berry, Trix and Lucky Charms because they were fortified with essential vitamins.
Sir Grapefellow, I learned, was a “grape-flavored oat cereal” filled with “sweet pieces of grape stars”—that is, marshmallows. Do not worry. It was “loaded with vitamins!” You can see this cereal box below and at 2:31 in mine video.
Breakfast cereals with sugar, he said Dr. Jean Mayer of Harvard, “is not a complete food even if it is fortified with eight or 10 vitamins.” Senator McGovern responded: “I think your point is well taken that these products may be mislabeled or more properly called candy vitamins than cereal.”
Plastering nutrient claims on cereal boxes can create “a ‘nutrition facade’ around a product, which distracts” from unpleasant qualities such as excessive sugar content. The researchers found that the “majority of parents misinterpreted the meaning of claims commonly used on children’s cereals’, raising significant public health concerns. Ironically, cereal boxes ball bearing Low-calorie claims were found to have more calories on average than those without such a claim. Cereals complain too much.
Even confectionery companies are getting in on the act, bragging on the protein content due to certain peanuts. Like Baby Ruth, a candy bar that he’s got 50 grams of sugar. Froot Loops could be considered breakfast candy since the same serving would have 40 grams of sugar, as you can see below and at 3:45 in my video.
Since “research shows that consumers believe front-of-pack claims, mistaking them as government-approved and using them to ignore the Nutrition Facts Panel’, there was a call for nutrition professionals to consider ‘a complete ban on all front-of-pack claims’. The industry’s short-lived “Smart Picks” label, as you can see below and at 4:13 in my videoit was met in disbelief when found adorning proper cereals like Froot Loops and Cookie Crisp. The processed food industry spent more than a billion dollars lobbying against the adoption of more informative labeling (the traffic light approach), “most aggressively opposes the use of a red light indicating that any food was too high in anything.”
I was called to testify as an expert witness in a case against sugary cereal companies. (I donated my fee, of course.) See related posts below for a series of videos and blogs that resulted from some of the research I did.
You may also be interested in videos and blogs about the food industry. see related posts below.
