Monday, September 28, 2009

Will Consumers Really Fall for This?

Yesterday I blogged about how certain companies advertise their soft drinks as including antioxidants-which I personally think is a bunch of hogwash. We all know it-drinking tons of soda is not the optimal health move.

Today I saw an article from the LA Times with a similar theme. Apparently there is a non-profit "nutrition" organization that has set parameters for which food will receive a large check mark labeled "Smart Choices". Apparently companies can pay $2, 500 to have their products reviewed and have the "Smart Choices" mark of approval.

This sounds great, doesn't it? Healthy food labeled as a "smart choice". Well, think again.

There has been a tad bit of criticism about this project. Certain cereal has been "Smart Choices" approved, including cereal such as Lucky Charms that contains 12 grams of sugar. Excuse me, but given the epidemic in childhood obesity and diabetes-since when has 12 grams of sugar first thing in the morning been a "Smart Choice"?

I'll tell you who is really making a smart choice, and it's not the consumers. This advertising is a slick move on the part of the corporations to manufacture the myth that this crappy food is actually good for us. They even had the non-profit organization change their criteria as to how much sugar can be included in order to qualify.

This is so disgusting. It reminds me of the same thing that happened with "low-fat" food. They market it as "low-fat" and healthy and then we find out that it has tons of bad stuff in it that isn't even healthy. These companies are just preying on people who are trying to make healthy decisions and don't realize that what the companies are selling them is practically the same old shit that has been making us unhealthy in the first place.

You can read the LA Times article here.

2 comments:

  1. Ive seen that as well (and the new!jiff!NOW WITH OMEGA3s made me think the same sort of thing) and initially rolled my eyes and ROLLED MY CART past them.

    then I thought about how many people buy into the antioxidant cr*p simply because they believe whats printed!

    sad and exploitative.


    MizFit

    ReplyDelete
  2. I am so bothered that consumers are able to be so easily brainwashed.

    ReplyDelete

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