Search results: Corn sugar

I think it’s time to start a new “of the week” series of posts—this one on egregiously marketed food products.

Thanks to Jerry Mande, who sent me this email:

Are you writing about Veggie Cheerios? An especially egregious case of misleading marketing. This could be Rob Califf’s Citrus Hill Fresh Choice moment. Particularly troubling is that original Cheerios, a go to finger food for moms of infants and toddlers, is lower sugar and higher in fiber than Veggie Cheerios  –  which only have 2g sugar plus 4g fiber. These new Cheerios have 8g sugars – from corn syrup – and only 2g fiber. Certainly, adding ¼ c. fruit & veggies shouldn’t cause the fiber to go down!

I hadn’t run across this version during my What to Eat revision visits to supermarkets, although I was aware that Cheerios, that old reliable cereal for kids, now came in more than 20 options—line extensions to take up more supermarket shelf space; the more shelf space, the more get sold.

I went right to the link:

Sure enough.  1/4 cup fruit & veggies.   And you get blueberry, banana, spinach, carrot, and sweet potato.  Impressive!

Here’s what Walmart says about it:

Available exclusively at Walmart [no wonder I hadn’t seen it], a wholesome bowl of Blueberry Banana flavored Cheerios Blends Cereal contains 1/4 cup of fruit and veggies in every serving.*

Uh oh; a footnote.  I went right to it:

* Cheerios Blends Cereal is made with fruit puree and vegetable powder. See complete list of ingredients. It is not intended to replace fruit or vegetables in the diet.

Oh.

As for the ingredient list:

Whole Grain Oats, Corn Meal, Sugar, Sweet Potato Powder, Corn Starch, Carrot Powder, Canola and/or Sunflower Oil, Banana Puree, Blueberry Puree Concentrate, Corn Syrup, Salt, Spinach Powder, Vegetable and Fruit Juice Color, Tripotassium Phosphate, Natural Flavor. Vitamin E (mixed tocopherols) Added to Preserve Freshness. [the rest are added vitamins and minerals].

You want fruits and vegetables?  Eat fruits and vegetables.

You want Cheerios?  I vote for the boring original.

I think I will go to Walmart and buy a box.  I want this one for my cereal box collection.  I don’t think it will be on the market long.

Really, I can’t make this stuff up.

Thanks to Jim Krieger of HealthyFoodAmerica.org for sending me to Food Navigator-USA: Post launches the first-ever cereal designed to promote sleep.

A cereal meant to be consumed at bedtime?  I wanted it for my cereal box collection, and there hasn’t been a good one like this for a long time since the FDA started discouraging ridiculous health claims.  I went straight to the Ithaca Walmart and scored a box.

Sweet Dreams, the box tells you, is “part of a healthy sleep routine.”

The front-of-package claims:

• Made with whole grains
• Supports natural melatonin production with zinc, folic acid, and B vitamins
• Excellent source of Vitamin E for neuroprotection

The back-of-package claims:

• Sleep…We want to help you enjoy it.  With delicious wholesome ingredients, curated vitamins and minerals, and a specially formulated night-time herbal blend, our dreamy cereal is part of a healthy sleep routine.
• Made with a night-time herbal blend containing a touch of lavender and chamomile

I looked up the website:

For 130 million American adults, a good night’s sleep is elusive. You deserve good sleep, and we want to help you enjoy it! So, we made Sweet Dreams cereal, the first ready-to-eat cereal specially designed to support a good sleep routine and a fresh start to the next day…Available in Blueberry Midnight and Honey Moonglow flavors, make Sweet Dreams cereal a part of your bedtime routine and enable a better sleep cycle while satisfying those nighttime food cravings.

Comment:

I hardly know where to begin: “curated vitamins and minerals”?  “Supports natural melatonin production”?

This last is a structure/function claim like those for supplements.  It requires only the barest hint of scientific substantiation.

Reader, I ate it.

The cereal is crunchy, with occasionally visible almonds, but is cloyingly sweet (to my taste): A cup of cereal has nearly a tablespoon (13 grams) of added sugar– 24% of a day’s total sugar allowance.

No wonder it’s so sweet.  Sugars appear seven times on the ingredient list.

Whole Grain Wheat, Rice, Cane Sugar, Almonds, Whole Grain Rolled Oats, Canola and/or Soybean Oil, Flavor Clusters (Sugar, Corn Syrup, Degermed Corn, Palm Oil, Natural Flavor, Cocoa (processed with alkali)(for color), Blueberry and Carrot Concentrates (for color)), Salt, Honey, Corn Syrup, Barley Malt Extract, Molasses, Tocopherols (Vitamin E) to maintain freshness, Natural Flavor.

Post must be trying to sell more cereal.  Eat cereal at night?  Well, if you have sleep problems I suppose you can give it a try.

I ate this cereal in the morning.  It did not make me feel sleepy.

*******

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Hundreds of reports of illness from eating Lucky Charms cereal have intrigued food safety experts.

The FDA is investigating, but being really cagey about it.

Everybody seems to know that reference number 1064 refers to Lucky Charms cereal.

The FDA has received 529 reports of adverse effects.

Food safety lawyer Bill Marler has been following the situation.

Since late 2021, the crowd sourcing website iwaspoisoned.com has received 6,400 reports from people complaining of classic food poisoning symptoms of nausea, vomiting and diarrhea after eating Lucky Charms cereal. General Mills, the maker of the cereal, has said that is has investigated the situation and there is no apparent link between the reported illnesses and Lucky Charms.

The Washington Post quotes experts calling for a recall, Bill Marler among them.

Although, there has been no scientific proven link, be it chemical or an allergen, between the several thousand illnesses and Lucky Charms,” Marler said, “my advice to General Mills is to recall the product and reset its trust with the consuming public until more is known.

Is there a link?  Or is this just a matter of people getting sick, remembering they ate this cereal, and putting the two together—even though no cause-and-effect exists.

What a concept!  A government cracking down on illegally labeled Kellogg kids’ cereals, lots of them.

The Associated Press report of the matter, widely reproduced, does not say which cereals or show photos of the ones that were seized.

Mexico has seized 380,000 boxes of Corn Flakes, Special K and other Kellogg’s cereals, claiming the boxes had cartoon drawings on them in violation of recently enacted laws aimed at improving children’s diets.

These laws put warning labels on foods and beverage high in calories, sugar, saturated fat, trans fat, sodium, artificial sweeteners, and caffeine.  These cover practically all ultra-processed foods.

At the same time, restrictions were placed on the advertising of unhealthy products to children, so that products with warning labels cannot be advertised to children or use cartoon characters.

I’m wondering if some of the seized products violated the law by having cartoons on the package, like this one.

Here is what the boxes of sugary cereals are supposed to look like now.

I want to know more about what got seized.

But how terrific that the Mexican government is taking this public health measure seriously.

Felicidades!

On January 1, the USDA’s useless rules for labeling bioengineered (BE) foods, those formerly known as genetically modified (GMOs), went into effect.

Will the new rules help you figure out which items in the produce section or anywhere else in the store have been genetically engineered?

Not a chance.

I am particularly curious about what’s in the produce section.  It’s easy enough to know which genetically modified foods have been approved by the FDA; the FDA has a website for this purpose.

But just because they’ve been approved does not necessarily mean they are in production and in your supermarket.

To know which ones are genetically modified, it would be nice to have labels.

Instead, we have the results of USDA’s obfuscation, as I discussed in a blog post two years ago: Goodbye GMO, Hello Bioengineered: USDA publishes labeling rules.  It’s worth repeating:

I am not a litigious person and much prefer to stay out of the legal system.

But I am a big fan of Bill Marler, who represents victims of food poisonings, not least because his lawsuits against companies with sloppy food safety procedures should encourage them to clean up their processes.

I’m not sure what to think of NPR’s account of Spencer Sheehan’s 400 or so lawsuits against food companies for misleading labeling.

The one that triggered off the article is on behalf of a woman suing Kellogg over the number of strawberries in Strawberry Pop-Tarts.

Enriched flour (wheat flour, niacin, reduced iron, vitamin B1 [thiamin mononitrate], vitamin B2 [riboflavin], folic acid), corn syrup, high fructose corn syrup, dextrose, soybean and palm oil (with TBHQ for freshness), sugar, bleached wheat flour. Contains 2% or less of wheat starch, salt, dried strawberries, dried pears, dried apples, leavening (baking soda, sodium acid pyrophosphate, monocalcium phosphate), citric acid, gelatin, modified wheat starch, yellow corn flour, caramel color, xanthan gum, cornstarch, turmeric extract color, soy lecithin, red 40, yellow 6, blue 1, color added.

Some of his other cases:

Keebler and Betty Crocker and others over “fudge” cookies and baking mixes that contained no milkfat.

Frito-Lay alleging it didn’t use enough real lime juice in its “hint of lime” Tostitos.

Coors suggesting its pineapple-and-mango-flavored Vizzy Hard Seltzers are sources of Vitamin C “nutritionally-equivalent” to actual pineapples and mangos.

Snack Pack pudding — advertised as “made with real milk” — actually made with fat-free skim milk.

Many cases targeting vanilla products — soda, soy milk, yogurt, ice cream — that use synthetic vanilla or other flavors alongside or in place of the more expensive natural vanilla.

NPR says

Most of Sheehan’s suits, including the strawberry Pop-Tart cases, allege damages based on the so-called “price premium theory,” which says that products are sold at higher prices than they would have otherwise commanded had the companies marketed them honestly.

Are these cases frivolous or in the public interest?

I’m for anything that gets the makers of ultra-processed foods to advertise them for what they are, not for what they aspire to be.

Hat tip to Lisa Young for sending this one.

Halloween is about one thing only: candy.

Candy has a place in diets, just not a big one—added sugars are best consumed at no more than 5% to 10% of calories (for many people, that’s 100 to 200 calories).  It doesn’t take much candy to get to those numbers.

Consumer Reports has a helpful report on what 100 calories looks like: 13.6 candy corn kernels (see note at end) and 2.3 Hershey’s miniatures.

The candy industry doesn’t think you eat enough.  Candy, it says, fuels the U.S. economy.

Making chocolate, candy, gum and mints, our industry plays an important role in the U.S. economy. We create good-paying jobs in the manufacturing sector in the U.S., and support thousands of additional American jobs as we sell our products in the marketplace, and source our ingredients, packaging and transportation. Additional jobs, known as induced jobs, are supported through the re-spending of wages throughout the supply chain.

Not only that, but candy is an essential part of health and wellness lifestyles (the candy industry’s at least):

The National Retail Federation predicts that this fall “consumer spending on Halloween-related items is expected to reach an all-time high of $10.14 billion, up from $8.05 billion in 2020.” Of this total, spending on candy is estimated to reach $3 billion, up from $2.14 billion.

Trick or Treat?  Enjoy the Halloween weekend.

A note on candy corn

It would never occur to me that anyone would care, but how’s this for candy-industry research:

While there is some debate about the best way to enjoy this classic Halloween candy, most Americans say they enjoy the whole piece of candy corn at once (52%), while 31% of people start at the narrow white end and 17% of people start with the wider yellow end.

The study: Effects of Unsweetened Preloads and Preloads Sweetened with Caloric or Low-/No-Calorie Sweeteners on Subsequent Energy Intakes: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Controlled Human Intervention Studies.  Han Youl Lee, Maia Jack, Theresa Poon, Daniel Noori, Carolina Venditti, Samer Hamamji, Kathy Musa-Veloso.  Advances in Nutrition, Volume 12, Issue 4, July 2021, Pages 1481–1499.

Methods: Review and meta-analysis of previously published studies.

Conclusions: Unsweetened or LNCS-sweetened preloads appear to have similar effects on intakes when compared with one another or with CS-sweetened preloads. These findings suggest that LNCS-sweetened foods and beverages are viable alternatives to CS-sweetened foods and beverages to manage short-term energy intake.

Funder: “The American Beverage Association provided funding for the work presented herein.”

Author disclosures: MJ is a paid employee of the American Beverage Association. Intertek Health Sciences, Inc.(HYL, TP, DN, CV, SH, KMV), works for the American Beverage Association as paid scientific and regulatory consultants.”

Comment: The great puzzle about artificial sweeteners is that they are not strongly associated with reduced calorie intake in most studies, perhaps because sweet tastes encourage people to eat more calories.  This industry-funded study is designed to counter that idea.  It concludes that low- or no-calorie sweeteners have no special effect on calorie intake.  The American Beverage Association represents soft drink companies, predominantly Coke and Pepsi, most of them manufacturing drinks sweetened with sugars or high-fructose corn syrup (with calories) or chemical sweeteners (no or low-calorie).  These companies are happy to have you buy either kind, and they don’t want you worrying about all the things you’ve heard about artificial sweeteners.

The Association’s rules for research are here.   But it is unlikely to fund proposals for research that might come up with inconvenient conclusions.

Reference: For a summary of research on the “funding effect”—the observations that research sponsored by food companies almost invariably produces results favorable to the sponsor’s interests and that recipients of industry funding typically did not intend to be influenced and do not recognize the influence—see my book, Unsavory Truth: How Food Companies Skew the Science of What We Eat.