Search results: breakfast cereals

I keep saying that food companies are not social service or public health agencies and should not be viewed as such.  They are businesses, and everything they do must aim to promote sales and returns to investors.

BakeryandSnacks.com, an industry newsletter to which I subscribe, has collected several of its articles on the anti-hunger activities of its member companies.  Is this public health or public relations?  Read and decide.

• Editor’s Spotlight: The food companies committed to fighting world hunger: World hunger remains a persistent crisis, with approximately 842 million people going hungry every day. We look at the bakery and snack giants that are leading the fight against hunger and malnutrition. Read more
• Cereals on-demand: UN to pilot ‘game-changing’ Food ATMs for African refugees: The United Nation’s World Food Program (WFP) and World Vision International (WVI) are planning to pilot automated teller machines (ATMs) in refugee camps in East Africa, which dispense locally sourced foods like cereals; much like a banking ATM dispenses cash. Read more
• Consumer watchdogs call out Kellogg’s for allegedly slashing fortification in Mexican children’s breakfast cereals: Three consumer watchdogs contend that Kellogg’s has allegedly removed essential micronutrients in its breakfast cereals sold in Mexico, despite 1.6 million children in the country suffering from chronic malnutrition. Read more
• Researchers develop disease-resistant climate-smart grains to help eradicate poverty in Africa: The International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) says it foresees rolling roll out new varieties of drought- and disease-resistant grains to African farmers next year to increase food security in the region. Read more
• Calling for entries: General Mills launches second Feeding Better Futures Scholars Program: General Mills is again calling on young innovators across North America for solutions on hunger relief, food waste and sustainable agriculture. Read more
• Call to action: FAO places nutrient-rich millets center stage to boost global innovation: The UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) has approved India’s proposal to observe 2023 as the International Year of Millets. Read more
•  Kellogg’s partners with global food banks to get the most needed foods to people in need: Kellogg is collaborating with Feeding America and The Global FoodBanking Network to make it easier for people to fight hunger by donating the foods hungry families request most from food banks across the globe. Read more
• Cereal giants Kellogg, Post and General Mills partner with Walmart to #fighthunger: Kellogg Company, Post, PepsiCo, Unilever, General Mills and ConAgra Foods are some of the suppliers to have joined with Walmart in its ‘Fight Hunger. Spark Change’ program in the US and Puerto Rico. Read more

It never occurred to me that we needed more research to prove that advertising to kids makes them want food products, pester their parents to buy the products, say they like the products, and actually eat the products.

That was the conclusion of a hugely important study from the Institute of Medicine in 2006.

You can download that report from the link.  It’s still worth reading.

Obviously, the points it made still need reinforcing.  Hence: this study.

Exposure to Child-Directed TV Advertising and Preschoolers. Intake of Advertised Cereals. Jennifer A. Emond, Meghan R. Longacre, Keith M. Drake, et al.  American Journal of Preventive Medicine, December 17, 2018.

The authors measured whether exposure to TV advertisements for kids’ breakfast cereals affected pre-schoolers’ intake of those cereals.

No surprise.  It did.

In this figure, the dots to the right of the vertical line indicate increased intake of the cereals after exposure to the ads.

I’d say the ads are doing what marketers hope they will do (except for Honey Nut Cheerios).  Ads for Cocoa Pebbles and Fruity Pebbles seem particularly effective.

The authors point out that food companies say they are no longer marketing to children under the age of six.  Obviously, they still are.

This is what parents are up against.  What to do?

Turn off the TV!  Call for regulation!

FoodNavigator-USA has collected its recent articles on food industry lawsuits.  As it puts it,

There have been hundreds of class action lawsuits directed against food and beverage companies in the past five years, spanning everything from added sugar, ‘natural’ and ‘healthy’ claims, to glyphosate residues, and alkaline water claims. We take a look at some high profile cases, some emerging hot topics from Non GMO claims to a new wave of kombucha lawsuits, and what’s coming up from the FDA, from plant-based ‘milk’ labeling guidance to a fresh look at ‘healthy’ and ‘natural’ labeling.

I’ve organized these into categories.

GMOs

• And now the food lawsuits… General Mills sued over glyphosate residue post Monsanto $289m verdict: Monsanto has just been ordered to pay $289m in damages to a man who alleged its glyphosate-based herbicide caused his cancer (a ruling it is appealing). But what, if anything, does this verdict mean for food companies manufacturing products containing trace levels of glyphosate?.. Read
• Nestlé USA lawsuit highlights confusion over Non-GMO claims, say attorneys: A lawsuit alleging that Nestlé USA is misleading shoppers with its ‘No GMO Ingredients’ seal is unlikely to make much progress, predict legal experts, but it does highlight the confusion surrounding Non-GMO claims given that the standards underpinning them can differ from one product to another… Read
• The Non-GMO Project may emerge as the big winner from federal GMO labeling legislation: The Non-GMO Project will “only become more relevant” as mandatory GMO labeling kicks in, in part because its scope could be so narrow that consumers will not simply be able to assume that anything without a bioengineered label is automatically Non-GMO, says executive director Megan Westgate… Read

Warnings about chemicals in foods

• ‘Significant increase’ in Prop 65 notices over lead, acrylamide, and cadmium in 2017/18, says Perkins Coie: There has been a significant increase in food and beverage Prop 65 actions in the past five years, with particularly strong growth in notices relating to lead, acrylamide and cadmium, according to new data compiled by attorneys at Perkins Coie… Read
• Amended Prop 65 regulations likely to prompt a significant uptick in litigation, predict attorneys: Amendments to Prop 65 – which requires firms selling products in California to provide warnings if their products expose consumers to 900+ chemicals linked to cancer or reproductive toxicity – will likely trigger a sharp rise in litigation as manufacturers struggle to get to grips with the new rules, predict attorneys… Read

Compliance with labeling and health claims requirements

• RXBAR sued over minimalist labels, ingredients declaration; but case is a stretch, say legal experts: ‘We tell you what’s on the inside on the outside’ protein bar brand RXBAR has been hit with a proposed class action lawsuit* by the same law firms challenging the minimalist ingredients declarations of fellow bar brand That’s It.**.. Read
• Halo Top routinely under-fills its pints, alleges lawsuit, ‘dramatically so, at times…’: A month after being hit with a lawsuit alleging it made false and misleading representations about its light ice cream, Halo Top has been targeted again, this time with a proposed class action alleging it routinely under-fills its pints, “and has been doing this for years.”.. Read
• ‘No reliable scientific evidence’ supports Trader Joe’s alkaline water claims, alleges lawsuit: “There is no greater benefit to ingesting Trader Joe’s alkaline water than ingesting an equivalent bottled water or tap water,” argues a lawsuit alleging Trader Joe’s is duping shoppers into paying over the odds for the water, although legal experts predict that proving Trader Joe’s is making false implied health benefit claims will be “close to impossible.”.. Read
• Plant-based ‘milk’ row heats up as FDA commissioner says ‘public health concerns’ inform the agency’s renewed interest in dairy standards of identity: The war of words over labeling conventions for plant-based ‘milk’ intensified this week as FDA commissioner Dr Scott Gottlieb indicated that a “a new compliance policy” may be on the cards as the agency hosted a public meeting on its nutrition innovation strategy… Read
• Do consumers expect kombucha to contain live organisms? Court gives green light to lawsuit: Do consumers expect products labeled as ‘kombucha’ to contain live organisms, even if they don’t make any claims to this effect? Maybe, according to a court filing in a case that could have broader ramifications for the burgeoning category going forward, say attorneys… Read
• How much sugar do consumers expect in a ‘lightly sweetened’ cereal? Judge certifies classes in Kellogg added sugar case:  If up to 40% of the calories in breakfast cereals are from added sugar, and brands describe them as ‘lightly sweetened,’ are they misleading shoppers? Perhaps, says a federal judge who has just certified three classes of consumers in a false advertising lawsuit vs Kellogg, which is now heading into mediation… Read
• Tofurky CEO: It’s not the role of lawmakers to choose winners or losers in any given industry: As long as protein products are safe and shoppers are not being misled, it’s not the role of lawmakers to write new labeling laws favoring one production method over another, says the CEO of plant-based meat brand Tofurky, which is challenging a Missouri law* limiting the term ‘meat’ to slaughtered livestock or poultry… Read
• Clif Bar fires back at ‘absurd’ lawsuit: Consumers expect energy bars to contain sugar: Clif Bar has hit back at allegations made in a recent lawsuit* that it is duping consumers by presenting bars that are “loaded with sugar” as wholesome and nutritious, and urged the judge to toss the “absurd” and “implausible” case… Read

And here’s a more recent one from CBS News:

• LaCroix ingredients: Lawsuit alleges “all natural” claim is false: LaCroix sparkling water is facing a lawsuit alleging its claims of “all natural” and “100 percent natural” are misleading because…”Testing reveals that LaCroix contains a number of artificial ingredients, including linalool, which is used in cockroach insecticide.”

And here’s one more from CSPI (an October 24 addition):

• CSPI sues Jamba Juice: its juices, CSPI charges, are made from cheap concentrates as well as fresh fruit.

Addition, December 11

• Article about the five most active lawsuits

The Environmental Working Group recently released a report on the amounts of glyphosate (Roundup) in children’s breakfast cereals, particularly those made with oats and wheat.

Roundup, you may recall, has been judged a probable carcinogen by the International Agency on Research on Cancer (IARC) and California courts.  It is used to kill weeds in fields growing crops genetically modified to resist Roundup.

But oats and wheat grown in the U.S. are not genetically modified.  The FDA’s list of genetically modified foods says nothing about oats and wheat, and the agency does not permit GMO versions to be marketed.

How could Cheerios and Quaker Oats be contaminated with glyphosate at amounts that exceed standards?

The explanation:

Increasingly, glyphosate is also sprayed just before harvest on wheat, barley, oats and beans that are not genetically engineered. Glyphosate kills the crop, drying it out so that it can be harvested sooner than if the plant were allowed to die naturally.

Really?  They spray glyphosate on oats just before harvest?  Yes, they do.

What this means is that more glyphosate gets into your food from the non-GMO wheat and oats sprayed just before harvest, then from GMO corn and soybeans sprayed earlier in their growth.

Whether eating glyphosate is bad for you or your kids is a matter of fierce debate.  As the New York Times explains, the safety of glyphosate is very much at issue:

In fact, it is central to a raging international debate about the chemical that has spawned thousands of lawsuits, allegations of faulty research supporting and opposing the chemical and a vigorous defense of the herbicide from Monsanto, the company that helped develop it 40 years ago and helped turn it into the most popular weedkiller in the world.

Scott Partridge, a vice president at Monsanto, said in an interview on Wednesday that hundreds of studies had validated the safety of glyphosate and that it doesn’t cause cancer. He called the Environmental Working Group an activist group.

“They have an agenda,” he said. “They are fear mongering. They distort science.”

The EWG states its advocacy position on its website:

The Environmental Working Group’s mission is to empower people to live healthier lives in a healthier environment. With breakthrough research and education, we drive consumer choice and civic action. We are a non-profit, non-partisan organization dedicated to protecting human health and the environment.

I do not view this report as distorting science.  If anything, it provides data that the industry is not collecting or does not want released.  This information is useful for making decisions about what to eat.

You don’t want your kids eating glyphosate while scientists are still in disagreement about the extent of its harm to human health?

• Vote with your fork: Buy organic cereals; they have far less or no detectable glyphosate.
• Vote with your vote: Call for policies to get these practices stopped.

Or you can consider a third option now in play: file a lawsuit.

A colleague in France, Serge Hercberg, a nutrition professor at the University of Paris writes to say that the French government’s decision on October 31 to support voluntary adoption of a “Nutri-Score” front-of-package label is now under attack by the food industry.

Nutri-Score looks like this (A is nutritious, lower grades less so):

The food industry wants something like this (of course it does, nobody can possibly understand it):

My colleague writes:

However,a powerful trade group, which includes major manufacturers of breakfast cereals, candies and cookies, is encouraging its members to instead select another type of nutrition al label. The trade group’s position is aligned with that of six food conglomerates – Mars, Mondelez, Nestlé, Coca-Cola, Unilever et PepsiCo (known as the “Big 6”) – who announced in March that they intended to develop an alternative system for the European Union.

With his nutritionist colleague, Chantal Julia, he describes in The Conversation what this fight is about.  I particularly like their example of how the two schemes help (or do not help) consumers choose between a yogurt and a fruit puree.

The Conversation article also comes in a French version.

My latest Viewpoint, “Corporate funding of food and nutrition research: science or marketing,” was published yesterday in JAMA Internal Medicine 2016;176 (1):13-14.  doi:10.1001/jamainternmed.2015.6667.

Systematic Review of Pears and Health. Holly Reiland, BS Joanne Slavin, PhD, RD.  Nutrition Today November/December 2015 – Volume 50 – Issue 6 – p 301–305.  doi: 10.1097/NT.0000000000000112.  

• Conclusions: Animal studies with pears suggest that pears may regulate alcohol metabolism, protect against ulcers, and lower plasma lipids. Human feeding studies with pears have not been conducted. In epidemiological studies, pears are combined with all fresh fruits or with apples, because they are most similar in composition. The high content of dietary fiber in pears and their effects on gut health set pears apart from other fruit and deserves study.
• Funding: The authors received a grant from USA Pears in the past. The authors provided their own funding to allow this article to publish as Open Access.
• Comment: Pears are a great fruit but the marketing purpose of this study is evident from this press release from the Pear Bureau Northwest: “While the body of evidence connecting pear intake and health outcomes is still limited, USA Pears has been contributing to research efforts by commissioning independent studies to learn and affirm the heath attributes of pears. Visit www.usapears.org for additional pear research, nutrition resources and recipes.”

Whole Grain Intakes in the Diets Of Malaysian Children and Adolescents – Findings from the MyBreakfast Study.  Norimah AK , H. C. Koo, Hamid Jan JM, Mohd Nasir MT, S. Y. Tan, Mahendran Appukutty, Nurliyana AR, Frank Thielecke, Sinead Hopkins, M. K. Ong, C. Ning, E. S. Tee.  PLoS ONE 10(10): e0138247. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0138247

• Conclusion: Whole grain is consumed by only a minority of Malaysian children and adolescents and even among consumers, intakes are well below recommendations. Efforts are needed to firstly understand the barriers to whole grain consumption among Malaysian children in order to design effective health promotion initiatives to promote an increase in whole grain consumption.
• Funding: The Nutrition Society of Malaysia received an unrestricted research grant from Cereal Partners Worldwide, Switzerland and Nestleé R&D Center, Singapore. This financial support was provided in the form of salaries for authors but the funders did not have any additional role in the study design, data collection and analysis or decision to publish. Frank Thielecke was an employee of Cereal Partners Worldwide at the time this study was conducted. He now works for Nestec SA. Sinead Hopkins is employed by Cereal Partners Worldwide (CPW), Switzerland and Moi Kim Ong and Celila Ning are employed by Nestleé R&D Center, Singapore….Nestlé and Cereal Partners Worldwide have a commercial interest in breakfast cereals.
• Comment: I learned about this study from a comment on Retraction Watch, which reported that PLoS One had filed a correction to the funding section.  The correction says that the salaries were for research assistants, not authors.

Walnuts Consumed by Healthy Adults Provide Less Available Energy than Predicted by the Atwater Factors.  David J Baer*, Sarah K Gebauer, and Janet A Novotny. J Nutrition First published November 18, 2015, doi: 10.3945/​jn.115.217372.

• Conclusion: Consistent with other tree nuts, Atwater factors overestimate the metabolizable energy value of walnuts. These results could help explain the observations that consumers of nuts do not gain excessive weight and could improve the accuracy of food labeling.
• Funding: This research was funded by the USDA and the California Walnut Commission… DJ Baer was funded by the USDA and the California Walnut Commission.

Cardiorespiratory Fitness, Body Fatness, and Submaximal Systolic Blood Pressure Among Young Adult Women.  Prasad Vivek Kumar, Drenowatz Clemens, Hand Gregory A., Lavie Carl J., Sui Xuemei, Demello Madison, and Blair Steven N.  Journal of Women’s Health, 2015 ahead of print. doi:10.1089/jwh.2015.5307.

• Conclusion: CRF, BF%, and BMI seem to have critical roles in determining SSBP with CRF and BF% being more potent at lower intensity exercise, whereas BMI was more strongly associated at higher intensity exercise.
• Funding for this project was provided through an unrestricted grant from The Coca-Cola Company. The sponsor played no role in the study design, data collection, analysis, and interpretation, or preparation and submission of this article. The authors thank the Energy Balance staff and study participants for their contributions. No competing financial interests exist. 
• Comment: This is one of the papers produced by participants in the now defunct Global Energy Balance Network formerly sponsored by Coca-Cola.

Does low-energy sweetener consumption affect energy intake and body weight? A systematic review, including metaanalyses, of the evidence from human and animal studies. PJ Rogers, PS Hogenkamp, C de Graaf , S Higgs , A Lluch , AR Ness , C Penfold , R Perry , P Putz , MR Yeomans and DJ Mela.  International Journal of Obesity advance online publication, 10 November 2015; doi:10.1038/ijo.2015.177

• Conclusion¨The preponderance of evidence from all human randomized controlled trials indicates that LES [low-energy sweeteners] do not increase EI [energy intake] or BW [body weight], whether compared with caloric or non-caloric (for example, water) control conditions. Overall, the balance of evidence indicates that use of LES in place of sugar, in children and adults, leads to reduced EI and BW, and possibly also when compared with water.
• Conflict: This work was conducted by an expert group of the European branch of the International Life Science Institute (ILSI Europe). The expert group received funding from the ILSI Europe Eating Behaviour and Energy Balance Task Force. Industry members of this task force are listed on the ILSI Europe website at www.ilsi.eu.
• Comment: ILSI is funded by food companies.

I was invited by CNN to comment on the announcement by Nestlé that it is removing artificial colors from its chocolates.

Here’s what I said:

(CNN) When food giant Nestle USA (to which I am, alas, not related) last month announced plans to remove all artificial flavors and colors from its chocolate candies, it understandably made headlines. According to the company, by the end of 2015, none of a group of 250 chocolate products including Butterfinger and Baby Ruth will contain artificial flavors or colors such as Red #40 or Yellow #5.

With the expectation that these chemicals will also disappear from the company’s other candies, it looks like the end of the use of artificial flavors and colors in anything but the cheapest food products. If that proves to be the case, it will be a welcome shift.

Nestle USA intends to advertise the reformulated products with a “No artificial flavors or colors” claim on package labels. If sales of the “no artificial” candies grow as expected, the company will surely extend the removal to all of its other colored and flavored food products. After all, Nestle’s international parent company — and the company’s competitors — will have to take notice and find ways to remove these chemicals from all their product lines.

Nestle USA has undeniable clout. It accounts for a quarter of the $100 billion in annual revenues of the more than century-old, privately held parent corporation, which itself is the largest food company in the world. This move surely will not only reverberate through the candy industry, but also affect every other major food company.

In substituting natural for artificial flavors and colors, Nestle USA is responding to what its customers are saying. The company’s own research indicates that Americans prefer their beloved candy brands to be free of artificial flavors and colors, while other surveys find majorities of respondents saying that artificial chemical additives negatively influence their buying decisions.

Nestle is also responding to decades of complaints from consumer advocates about the potential health risks of these chemicals, especially the dyes. Studies in experimental animals have linked high doses of food dyes to health problems, among them organ damage, cancer, birth defects, and allergic reactions. In humans, studies link food dyes to hyperactivity and other behavioral problems in young children.

The credibility of these studies and their implications for human health remain hotly debated. In the 1970s, for example, Ben Feingold, a physician in California, suggested that food additives caused children to become hyperactive. Much of the evidence for the “Feingold hypothesis” rested on anecdotal reports by parents, whereas double-blind, controlled clinical trials produced contradictory results.

On the basis of current evidence, some artificial food dyes have been banned, while others remain in use despite suggestions that they too might be harmful. But the makers and users of food dyes argue that the chemicals are safe at current levels of usage. As a result of all this, and in the absence of convincing evidence of their safety, the advocacy group Center for Science in the Public Interest has campaigned since the 1970s to remove food dyes and other chemicals from foods, and has continued to petition the Food and Drug Administration to ban them.

The opposing views complicate the regulatory status of food dyes. But after one clinical trial reported that dyes induce hyperactivity in half the children studied, the British government asked companies to stop using most food colors; the European Union requires a warning notice on many foods made with them.

In the United States, the FDA does not permit artificial food dyes to be used unless the manufacturers can meet safety requirements. But the amounts of these substances in the country’s food supply have greatly increased in recent years — soft drinks, breakfast cereals, frozen desserts and even salad dressings all contain artificial coloring agents. True, the FDA considers a dye to be safe if there is a reasonable certainty that no harm will result from its intended use. But that standard is vague enough to cause concern.

Given the unresolved scientific questions, it is reasonable to ask why artificial colors have to be in foods at all. From the standpoint of manufacturers, such additives are essential for covering up and hiding unattractive colors in processed foods. To the public, red candy seems to taste better than the drab variety. And while natural colors exist, they are less stable or more expensive to produce. But for Nestle to have taken the action that it has, the company must have found substitutes it can live with. And appealing to consumers’ preference for “natural” makes good business sense.

The truth is that whether artificial colors do or do not cause health problems in adults or children, they are there strictly for cosmetic purposes. For that reason alone, getting rid of them is a good idea.