The New York Times has a strange article up, For Your Health, Froot Loops, which profiles the controversy around a new health food guideline/endorsement organized by industry which seems somewhat fishy. This part made me laugh out loud:
Dr. Kennedy, who is not paid for her work on the program, defended the products endorsed by the program, including sweet cereals. She said Froot Loops was better than other things parents could choose for their children.
"You're rushing around, you're trying to think about healthy eating for your kids and you have a choice between a doughnut and a cereal," Dr. Kennedy said, evoking a hypothetical parent in the supermarket. "So Froot Loops is a better choice."
Are there really parents who regularly consider buying doughnuts as meals for their kids? When I was a kid the rule-of-thumb was that really tasty cereal, like Honey Smacks, Frosted Flakes, and yes, Fruit Loops, was not the healthiest. In contrast, Total didn't taste nearly as good. Does the "if kids don't like too much it's probably good for them" heuristic not work anymore? Yes, preparing food from scratch takes a long time. But if you're going by processed stuff, the tastier the more likely there's a lot of salt, fat and sugar. It really isn't that hard to eat just one Wheat Thin.
- Log in to post comments
Marion Nestle at new york university (who is very cool) has interesting things to say about these scoring systems (and a handy keyword wiget on the blog)
here:
http://www.foodpolitics.com/tag/scoring-systems/
Almost all of them are purely for marketing purposes.
There is one respectable, peer reviewed, science based one coming in now, though, check out
http://www.foodpolitics.com/2008/01/more-on-nutrition-scoring-david-kat…
and the post referred to therein.
In contrast, Total didn't taste nearly as good.
Wikipedia tells me that "Don't talk shit about Total" is a marketing slogan for the brand. I concur.
Are there really parents who regularly consider buying doughnuts as meals for their kids?
American life withholds its mysteries from the immigrant even unto the second generation. The answer is YES!
Growing up back in the early 1970's, I recall that people who were obsessive about nutrition were known as "health nuts" and viewed with the same suspicion reserved for hippies, longhairs, and cult members.
However, in spite of their lack of nutritional knowledge compared with the enlightened souls of today, everyone's parents seemed fully aware that things like donuts, Ho-Ho's, Twinkies, Froot Loops, chips, Slim-Jims, etc., were "junk" and were not to be confused with actual foods.
Granted, our diets were heavy on items from the condensed-soup-casserole group, and I don't recall eating many vegetables that weren't from a can (except during the summer when we had produce from the garden), but overall we were a heckuva lot skinnier and healthier than the chubby youth of today.
Mind you, our parents also discouraged snacking -- the prevailing wisdom was that snacking made you fat, promoted tooth decay, spoiled your appetite for dinner, and (in the case of sugary snacks) led to "hyperactivity." I think we got a snack in kindergarten -- I remember them bringing little containers of milk to our classroom -- but by first grade, it was assumed that children could go for four consecutive hours without eating. Today, our local school still commands me to pack a snack for my 4th grader, with the predictable result that she has no appetite for her lunch.
When I was a 16, I often was sent to the local doughnut shop to get breakfast for the family, when everyone was heading to school or work, and time was short.
Alas, yes. Having been married to a public-health nurse can disillusion anyone.
Fascinating how they seem to be so interested in "nutrients" like vitamins and fibre, when the problem with modern Western food is not that they're deficient in anything but that there's just too much of it.
If you were serious about food labelling, you'd just print the number of calories contained in the packet in big red numbers on the front of everything. The average consumer doesn't need to know about Vitamin E or the % of fats, and no-one knows that they mean anyway.
Froot Loops area definately "better" than Donuts, but really, Donuts are so much "better" that Froot Loops!?!?!
Yes, not only are their parents who feed their kids donuts, but there are parents that then, later in the day, feed their kids McDonald's french fries and ice cream.
And it is not a matter of education or intent. I knew two folks who were PhD yielding academics who wanted nothing but the best for their kids, but also happened to believe that "all this stuff about diet" was bogus, and fed her what they ate, which literally was McDonals every day, or at least, on the good days.
I think there were consequences, though it is hard to say what causes what.
Yes, sweet cereal out of a box is quick. But really, making breakfast from 'scratch' takes all of a few minutes.
I make breakfast for 4 people, including our 7-yr old daughter, every day. I have a full-time + job as part-owner of a company and all the other things one must do in life (wash clothes, etc).
It takes me 10-15 minutes to make waffles, pancakes, oatmeal porridge, eggs w/ toast. Yes, our daughter puts maple syrup on pancakes and honey on her oatmeal, but even with the huge amounts she prefers, it's less sugar than in the "healthy" fruitloops. So, the choice is between 15 minutes of prep, whole grains, fruits, protein and CHEAPER food or save a few minutes and lots of sugar and more expensive. I don't know of any parents who think the choice is between a donut and sugary cereal.
By the way, doughnuts are a Canadian stereotype, more than an American stereotype. So everyone direct your snark northward.
You are clearly and young whippersnapper. I remember when Frosted Flakes were more honestly labeled Sugar Frosted Flakes. Mmmmmmmmmmmmmm.
Actually.....
Just for fun, look up the nutritional information for Fruit Loops, and the online PDF from Krispy Kreme. Calories per gram is roughly equal for donuts vs fruit loops. Before you add milk.
The cereal has a bit of fiber. Likely cheap insoluble fiber, or sawdust. Otherwise, the donuts lean towards fat calories, while the cereal leans more towards processed sugar. So which is less bad? The sugar or the fat?
Maybe this analogy isn't as clear as Dr Kennedy hoped!
Just because it is lower in calories doesn't mean that it doesn't have poison in it (toxins such as high fructose corn syrup). Read the labels people.
John[10] Perhaps a homogeneous place like Canada can have "a stereotype" but here in America ...
With respect to donuts, you should know that they were invented in New York City in 17th century and they are most commonly fetishized culturally in New England, where there are more donut shops than telephone poles. (I think more are eaten per capita in the south, though).