Remember the absurd immunity claims on Kellogg’s cereals last year? The company added some vitamins and minerals to its sugary kids cereals and plastered a huge “Immunity” logo on the front of Cocoa Krispies and three other products. A public uproar ensued, especially given raging swine flu, and Kellogg’s announced in November it would pull the claim from its packaging.

Concurrently, Oregon’s Attorney General subpoenaed Kellogg’s and asked for the scientific evidence behind the claim. The company preferred not to answer that question but rather:

• stop shipping cereal boxes with immunity language by January 15
• destroy more than 2 million boxes (sans krispies)  with the immunity claim
• donate 108,000 boxes of cereal to the Oregon Food Bank
• donate 372,000 boxes to  Feeding America.

That’s quite an effort just to evade answering a question for which obviously Kellogg’s should have been prepared.

What you need to know:

Cocoa Krispies, as we wrote, is a terrible cereal to feed your kids. The krispies are over 40% sugar by weight. They contain trans fats. They carry artificial flavorings, and less than 1 gram of fiber. Immunity? Ha! This was sheer chutzpah on Kellogg’s part. Good for Oregon!

We hope that the donated cereal is the plain unsweetened variety of Rice Krispies.

What to do at the supermarket:

Hard as it may be, ignore all the marketing messages on product packaging. Go straight to the nutrition panel and the ingredient list.

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Update [Wednesday morning 10/27]: General Mills has thrown in the towel as well. Just last week, at the annual ADA conference, Susan Crocket, PhD, RD the company’s Senior VP of Health and Nutrition defended the program’s integrity with deep fervor.

Update [Monday night 10/26] : Unilever just announced that it will be phasing out the Smart Choices logo from its food and beverage products now that the Food and Drug Administration plans to standardize criteria for food nutrition labels.

The Smart Choices Program will cease Front of Pack food labeling effective immediately. Bowing to pressure from the public as well as warning letters from the FDA and Connecticut’s Attorney General, the industry led organization announced

it will voluntarily postpone active operations and not encourage wider use of the logo at this time by either new or currently enrolled companies. more…

The American Society for Nutrition, which served as the “objective, scientific” cover for the nutrition criteria set by the food industry, sent out a letter to its members:

ASN commends the FDA on its announcement of intent to develop standardized criteria on which front-of-pack nutrition and shelf labeling could be based. In addition, ASN fully supports the decision of the Smart Choices Program Board of Directors to postpone their active operations as FDA works to address both front-of-pack and on shelf labeling. “ASN will continue to provide nutrition science expertise within the dialogue on front-of-pack labeling in order to best serve the interests of the health of Americans,” said ASN President Jim Hill in a statement to media.

Interestingly, the statement by the Smart Choices Board of Directors does not appear on their website homepage. It was also issued late Friday afternoon, a time slot usually reserved for bad news by PR professionals, assuming the upcoming weekend will help soften the blow.

What you need to know:

This is a great piece of news to kick off the weekend.

Despite explanations by top nutrition experts and as to why the Smart Choices program was scientifically sound, anyone with a bit of common sense will tell you that Froot Loops cereal is not a “Smart Choice”.

What to do at the supermarket:

Make your own Smart Choice by learning to read nutrition facts panels and ingredient lists. Here’s an easy piece of advice to follow: in many cases, the shorter the ingredient list, the better the product.

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Connecticut’s Attorney General, Richard Blumenthal, is not happy with the Smart Choices front of package labeling system. He too cannot understand how such a system, designed to help consumer choose healthier foods allows Froot Loops to be considered nutritious. He wrote on Wednesday to several large food manufacturers participating in the program that he was concerned it was “overly simplistic, inaccurate and ultimately misleading.”

“As a matter of common sense, these sugar-laden or fat-saturated products seem very questionable as so-called ‘Smart Choices’ nutritionally,” Mr. Blumenthal said. “We’re ratcheting up pressure for truthful answers to these issues.”

The Connecticut investigation will seek to determine if the labeling campaign violates the state’s consumer protection law, which bars misleading or false product claims, he added. read more…

This is not surprising. In fact several other state attorneys may be joining this investigation in order to protect their constituents from marketing “fraud”.

Froot Loops, for reference, contains 3 teaspoons of added sugar, trans fat, and several different artificial colors. If there was any doubt, it contains zero fruit.

What to do at the supermarket:

Our best advice is to count “Smart Choices” as just another marketing claim, rather than objective health information. As such, simply ignore it. Always read the nutrition label and ingredients list to get the facts. When it comes to cereals, you’ll want to see a low sugar count (6 grams per serving or less) and a high fiber count (5 grams and up) from whole grains.

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flickr photo: Symic

Miller Coors, the giant beer conglomerate, announced last week that it will cut the caffeine out of its popular Sparks alcoholic beverage:

MillerCoors today said it has reached an agreement with a coalition of state attorneys general to voluntarily reformulate Sparks to remove caffeine, taurine, guarana and ginseng from the product. The brewer also agreed not to produce caffeinated alcohol beverages in the future.

Read MillerCoors Press Release

The “voluntary” move is of course a preemptive decision designed to stop further investigation by over 25 state attorney generals who have

criticized the brewing company for its Sparks beverages, saying high caffeine levels in those high-alcohol brews can mask intoxication.

Energy-alcohol drinks “look and taste like popular non-alcoholic energy drinks,” Maine Atty. Gen. Steve Rowe said in a press release. “They’re popular with young people who wrongly believe that the stimulating effects of caffeine will counteract the intoxicating effects of alcohol.”

The attorneys general have also slammed MillerCoors for aggressive Sparks marketing campaigns that they say target youth.

Read the entire Chicago Tribune article…

What you need to know:

Energy drinks such as Red Bull have been mixed by drinkers with alcohol for almost as long as Red Bull has been around, as a means to “party on” while still getting “buzzed”. The Sparks drink took it one step further and saved consumers the chore of mixing. And by consumers, we mean college campus youth. However, studies have shown that mixing alcohol, a depressant, and caffeine, a stimulant, can cause people to feel less drunk than they actually are. As a result, these wired, inebriated youngsters are more prone to accidents and over time, alcoholism.

Earlier this year, the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI), a consumer watchdog organization, warned both MillerCoors and Anheuser-Busch of its intent to sue them over the caffeination of alcoholic beverages. This helped Anheuser-Busch decide to take caffeine and other unapproved additives out of its two alcoholic energy drinks, Bud Extra and Tilt in June 2008.

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