Posted on 06/21/2011 12:56:23 AM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
Tony the Tiger, some NASCAR drivers and cookie-selling Girl Scouts will be out of a job unless grocery manufacturers agree to reinvent a vast array of their products to satisfy the Obama administration’s food police.
Either retool the recipes to contain certain levels of sugar, sodium and fats, or no more advertising and marketing to tots and teenagers, say several federal regulatory agencies.
The same goes for restaurants.
It’s not just the usual suspected foods that are being targeted, such a thin mint cookies sold by scouts or M&Ms and Snickers, which sponsor cars in the Sprint Cup, but pretty much everything on a restaurant menu.
Although the intent of the guidelines is to combat childhood obesity, foods that are low in calories, fat, and some considered healthy foods, are also targets, including hot breakfast cereals such as oatmeal, pretzels, popcorn, nuts, yogurt, wheat bread, bagels, diet drinks, fruit juice, tea, bottled water, milk and sherbet.
Food industries are in an uproar over the proposal written by the Federal Trade Commission, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Food and Drug Administration and the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
“The most disturbing aspect of this interagency working group is, after it imposes multibillions of dollars in restrictions on the food industry, there is no evidence of any impact on the scourge of childhood obesity,” said Dan Jaffe, executive vice president of the Association of National Advertisers.
The “Interagency Working Group on Food Marketed to Children, Preliminary Proposed Nutrition Principles to Guide Industry Self-Regulation Efforts” says it is voluntary, but industry officials say the intent is clear: Do it, or else.
“When regulators strongly suggest a course of action, it’s treated as a rule, not a suggestion,” said Scott Faber, vice president of federal affairs for the Grocery Manufacturers Association. “Industry tends to heed these suggestions from our regulators, and this administration has made it clear they are willing to regulate if we don’t implement their proposal.”
It’s not just the food industry that will be impacted. Hundreds of television shows that depend on the advertising revenue, such as the Nickelodeon Channel, ESPN, and programs including "American Idol" will be affected, critics of the proposal say—at a cost of $5.8 trillion in marketing expenditures that support up to 20 million American jobs.
If the food is not reformulated, no more ads or promotions on TV, radio, in print, on websites, as well as other digital advertising such as e-mail and text messaging, packaging, and point-of-purchase displays and other in-store marketing tools; product placement in movies, videos, video games, contests, sweepstakes, character licensing and toy branding; sponsorship of events including sport teams and individual athletes; and, philanthropic activity tied to branding opportunities.
That includes softball teams that are sponsored by food companies and school reading programs sponsored by restaurants.
“The Interagency working group recommends that the food industry, through voluntary self-regulatory efforts, make significant improvements in the nutritional quality of foods marketed to children and adolescents ages 2 to 17 years,” the proposal says.
“By the year 2016, all food products within the categories most heavily marketed directly to children should meet two basic nutrition principles. Such foods should be formulated to … make a meaningful contribution to a healthful diet and minimize the content of nutrients that could have a negative impact on health and weight.”
The foods most heavily marketed directly to children and adolescents fall into 10 categories: “breakfast cereals, snack foods, candy, dairy products, baked goods, carbonated beverages, fruit juice and non-carbonated beverages, prepared foods and meals, frozen and chilled desserts, and restaurant foods.”
Beth Johnson, a dietician for Food Directions in Maryland, said many of the foods targeted in this proposal are the same foods approved by the federal government for the WIC nutrition program for women, infants and children.
“This doesn’t make any sense whatsoever,” Johnson said. “It’s not going to do anything to help with obesity. These are decisions I want to make for my kids. These should not be government decisions.”
Because of the recent “Throwback” sucrose-based varieties of PepsiCo products that have appeared, it’s possible to actually do A-B comparisons. The sucrose versions taste only a little different to me than the HFCS versions, but the sucrose sodas “feel” much more satisfying. People relying on memory alone may be recalling times when their sense of taste was more sensitive, and everything in the soda seemed to taste better, not just the sweetener.
I learned most of this stuff in high school biology.
My son is young enough that he never had the sucrose based one til recently and says it tastes much better than the HFCS based soft drink.
Which in turn was because of sugar price supports. The beverage, confectionery, and corn industries came up with this HFCS workaround to soaring sugar prices and basically turned their backs on traditional sugar. If sugar had been left alone economically, this probably never would have happened.
I spoke with a nutritionist/dietician about this very topic a couple of months ago at a research event at one of the Universities.
What gets me is that they foist this stuff on us then find out 20 years later that it was bad. That’s what happened when they gave us trans fats. Now we find out that trans fats are the worst kind and and are very hard for the body to break down and get rid of, which is why accumulate and clog the arteries so easily.
The only baking sugar I buy is cane. I find it works better for things that beet doesn’t.
Yep.
LOL
I thought it was the most ridiculous thing when I was in college and flipping burgers. However, in hindsight and understanding productization and branding it makes sense.
It’s a patented product and even the holder of the patent cannot break it.
Otherwise there is no IP rights by law.
I’m not sure it is as true to say it was “foisted” as that it made economic sense at the time based on other factors. Trans fats, produced in creating hydrogenated shortenings, would have been a minor factor in a normal diet, even one substituting margarine for butter because it’s cheaper. Now people are aware that excess trans fats can lead to faster hardening of the arteries. But a diet exhibiting excess trans fats is probably unhealthy for other reasons as well.
Maybe I’m not such a gourmet — I never noticed that either sugar in white form had a different flavor. After it has been bleached, purified, and strangled of accompanying fiber and nutrients until it screams, only your chemist knows for sure and maybe not even him or her.
While I’m thinking of it, the new thing to watch out for is interesterified fats. Not only are they as bad as trans fats but early studies show they also have the bonus of raising blood glucose levels 20%. Yeehaaa its just keeps getting better and netter! Seen it listed in some crackers already.
It isn’t the flavor per se, but how it reacts with the other ingredients.
Right now I can find several brands of “throwback” soda at my local grocery store. Pepsi and Mountain Dew are the most recent ones I’ve seen... I don’t like Pepsi OR MD, but my girls say the “throwback” MD tastes WAY better than the “reg.” stuff...
How can this be even remotely constitutional? We opened the door when we let them regulate advertising on booze and cigs.
I miss the McDLT. A 1/4 pounder with cheese with lettuce, tomato and mayo, just ain't the same.
Seems that good old (bad old?) palm and coconut oils are undergoing a renaissance. That these naturally solid fats aren’t nearly as bad for people as had been feared. And they certainly taste decent. Like the margarine commercial said, it’s not nice to fool Mother Nature.
We call this the “do as I say not as I do” diet on the part of the 0bamas. They can literally eat like pigs while we get to eat cardboard.
Regarding fats, years ago I read: if it maintains its solid nature at room temperature, it will do that in your body (paraphrased).
Made me rethink some of the products I used to use.
Indeed. HFCS is to the human body what ethanol is to cars... literally devil's piss. What I don't get is why is it in literally everything? We go out of our way to avoid as much food that contains it as possible... it is very, very difficult to do.
I always have at least a case of Goose Island root beer in the pantry.
My cousins ex wife worked at a A&W 25-30 years ago. They had to mix the root beer themselves every day. She said there was like 1# of sugar for every gallon. (The number could be a little off, but it was still a HUGE percentage)
Sugar gives drinks like Coke and root beer that sweet, carmely taste.
It would take less time to list the things the Feds do that are constitutional I think. This is just another way to take people’s free will choices away from them. How can people learn and develop any true wisdom if they aren’t allowed to make choices and make the inevitable mistakes that people make?
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