Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
Among the supposed Smart Choice products were Cocoa Krispies,
Froot Loops, and other products that are almost 50 percent refi ned
sugar. The chairman of the Smart Choices program said that the labeling
system was based on federal dietary guidelines and sound nutrition, and
that “Our nutrition criteria are based on sound, consensus science.”
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Despite being chased out of the Smart Choices campaign, Kellogg's in
October 2009, began shipping boxes of Cocoa Krispies emblazoned with
the claim, “Now helps support your child's immunity.”
Consider the content of one so-called health bar. In order of abun-
dance, the label cites sugar (sucrose), rolled oats, dextrose (another
sugar), wheat fl akes, rice, dried lemon (sulfi ted), soybeans, fructose
(another sugar), corn syrup (yet another), partially hydrogenated peanut
and soybean oil (industrially processed fat), nonfat milk, almonds, malt
(more sugar), sorbitol (and yet more sugar), and fl avoring. Percentages
of each constituent are not given. Anyone who will buy that product as
a health bar will buy anything.
Health claims by the manufacturers of processed foods are bogus and
center on only one or two of the properties of their product rather than
its overall effect on health. The FDA commissioner points out that
“products with symbols stating they provide a high percentage of daily
vegetable requirements and other nutrients neglect to mention they rep-
resent 80 percent of your daily fat allowance. There are those with zero
percent trans fats on the front [label] but don't indicate that they contain
very high percentages of saturated fats.”
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No one knows the long-term effect of processed foods on the human
body, but it certainly cannot be good. There must be a reason the
United States leads the world in arthritis, cancer, constipation, diabetes,
gout, heart disease, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and obesity.
If processed products were healthy, they would occur naturally. The
food industry concentrates on making what you eat exceptionally tasty,
which typically means adding lots of sugar, salt, and fat to their
product. Humans should eat natural food, not the artifi cial concoctions
hawked by the companies that fi ll supermarkets with unhealthy and
unnecessary edible products. In his topic
In Defense of Food: An
Eater's Manifesto
, Michael Pollan writes that the fi rst rule is to avoid
any food products with more than fi ve ingredients and those that
contain unfamiliar ingredients. Good advice.
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