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No, there's no typo in that headline. Eating healthy is hard--especially when the big food producers seem hell bent on confounding the consumer into buying unhealthy food under false pretenses.
Recall: those ads by the high fructose corn syrup industry which essentially tried to sell the message of "come on, HFCS isn't like, bad for you or anything." Now, there's another fairly diabolical ploy to get you to buy foods that simply aren't good for you: the Smart Choices labeling program.
The campaign, which is sponsored by the nation's biggest food manufacturers, is "designed to help shoppers easily identify smarter food and beverage choices." Food items deemed 'smarter' food and beverage choices will be the recipient of a Smart Choices label, which features a green check mark along with those words. So what are some of the foods that will get to bear the Smart Choices label?
Froot Loops cereal, Fudgsicles, and Hellmann's Mayonaise. Mmmm. Good eating, if I've ever seen it. Seriously--any food labeling system that includes Froot Loops as a Smart Choice is inherently deeply flawed (And what's with the green check mark? come on, I thought we'd moved on to localwashing now).
According to the New York Times, food nutritionists are already in an uproar:
"These are horrible choices," said Walter C. Willett, chairman of the nutrition department of the Harvard School of Public Health. He said the criteria used by the Smart Choices Program were seriously flawed, allowing less healthy products, like sweet cereals and heavily salted packaged meals, to win its seal of approval. "It's a blatant failure of this system."
And the FDA isn't wild about it either. The agency says it will be keeping a close eye on the program, to see if it adversely affects consumers buying habits. For now though, it's allowed to stand. Which means we'll have to keep our eyes out--so if you start seeing green check marks pop up everywhere, and comforting words like 'Smart Choices' calling out to you from the aisles in the grocery store, walk on by. It's just another attempt by big food makers to quell the public's slowly growing health consciousness.
Be smart. Avoid Smart Choices.
More on Healthy Food Choices
Food for Thought: How Healthy Eating Makes You Smarter
The Declaration for Healthy Food and Agriculture
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