Fooducate is participating in the annual Food & Nutriton Conference and Expo (FNCE) in Denver this year. We’ll be covering the show on the blog and on twitter, trying to bring interesting stories and attractions, along with a dash of opinion.

Today, as a pre-conference activity a group of dietitians and food professionals visited a local Frito-Lay manufacturing plant where we were given a tour and presentations about the company’s commitment to health and sustainability. We have to admit that healthy and ecology are not the first 2 things that come to mind when thinking about potato chips. That said, the PR team and plant staff did provide interesting information.

Here then, are a few observations:

1. A Dorito or Frito right hot off the machine is definitely tastier than what you get out of the bag a week or month later.

2. Seeing how a truckload of corn or potato is transformed in a matter of minutes to a bagged savory snack is quite remarkable. There’s a lot of engineering and quality control that goes into this process, regardless of the fact that the end product is not a picture of perfect nutrition.

3. Frito-Lay, owned by PepsiCo, has been and is continuing to lead in nutrition and sustainability, according to its press materials. Some examples include becoming a “net zero plant” by 2011. This means energy in equals energy out. This is achieved by reusing water, generating electricity through solar and other renewable means.

4. The nutrition improvements include – removal of bad fats in the 1980’s , then the removal of trans fats in the early 2000’s. Only 3 ingredients – potatoes, oil, salt. Relatively low amount of sodium – same as in a slice of bread.

5. When asked how much potato chips America consumed, the answer was 2-3 servings a week per person!

6. If that’s not enough, the dietitians working at Frito Lay said that as part of a balanced diet, there’s no problem in your children consuming a serving of potato chips every single day.

7. Baked chips, which have only 20% of the fat in the regualr chips account for only 7% of chip sales for Frito-Lay.

8. Potatoes sourced by Frito-Lay are of a specific variety with exactly the right shape, size, extra thin peel, and starchiness.

9. From truck to bag, it takes a potato just 12 minutes to go the route.

10. Damaged chips and corn products are not wasted, they get sold to local pig farmers. Wonder if all that Nacho seasoning does anything to the hogs…

11. The average potato chip serving is 1 oz. or 16 chips, according to the product label. When asked if this is in line with what people actually consume (we think people eat much more), the answer was that studies on this have not been carried out. The team was quick to point out the single serve bags, the portion control bags, and that for bags under 3 oz that may be consumed in a single sitting nutrition information is presented both per 1 oz serving and for the entire bag.

Summary – all in all, the visit opened our eyes to the ingenuity both in manufacturing and product formulation. We are happy that there are registered dietitians working at Frito-Lay helping to make the products less bad for us.

But at the end of the day we must still remember, these are just snacks. They are not meant to replace real food, nor should you look at them as a source of any substantial nutrients. And we definitely don’t think it’s fine to serve our kids potato chips 7 days a week. But then again, we don’t get our paycheck from Frito-Lay.

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Some shoppers may have noticed lately that packages of Frito-Lay brand potato chips, Doritos, Cheetos, and Tostitos are bigger than they used to be. It’s hard to miss, especially when the one on Tostitos says: ”Hey! There’s 20 percent more free fun to share in here!”

That’s 20% more calories, fat, and sodium too.

The price, though, hasn’t changed. Why would a manufacturer want to give us this gift?

The New York Times explains:

Think of your food packages like an economic barometer: Times are tough, so costs are low and packages are bigger. When times are good, costs are high and packages, to compensate, get smaller.

Tough times also mean consumers have less money to spend, so they want those bigger packages. Experts say this is a promotional tool that helps branded food companies steer shoppers back to their products and away from less expensive, store-brand alternatives.

What you need to know:

Last year, as commodity prices were going through the roof, manufacturers had a dilemma – should they raise prices to remain profitable? The answer was no. Instead, they sneakily reduced the amount of product and employed a grocery shrink ray to reduce the package size. Packaged items from Red Bull to chicken wings to peanut butter were secretly shrunk, and consumers were unknowingly paying more per ounce of food / beverage.

Now that commodity prices are way down and consumers are pinching pennies, it’s time to reverse the shrink ray and start to buff up those packages. Lowering prices would be great for us, but food companies are afraid that it would devalue their brand and cause problems in the future when they’ll want to raise prices again.

While last year’s shrink ray was hush hush, this year’s good deeds of package growth should not go unheard right? You betcha, and that’s why all the XYZ-os are labeled with the “20% more” marketing message.

Thanks food manufacturers, for being dishonest with us last year, and for stuffing us with even more of you unhealthy snacks this year.

At least one thing hasn’t changed – the serving size – a laughable 11 chips. Yes, that’s right, what people wolf down between opening the bag to pouring its contents into a serving bowl. But we’ll talk about serving sizes in another post.

What to do at the supermarket:

Some supermarkets let you easily compare product prices by reading shelf tags with price per oz / fl oz. This is a very helpful tool.

But even more helpful to you will be to cut down on the amount of processed snacks you purchase, and direct the savings to more natural options like fresh fruits, dried fruits, and nuts.

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Ever since the term locavore was coined in 2005, there has been a lot of excitement around the prospect of people enjoying fresher, tastier foods, with less of an environmental impact because they travel less. We have come to appreciate farmers’ markets, contemplated food miles, and argued endlessly over what’s better: organic tomatoes or local tomatoes.

It was only a matter of time, then,  until the big food companies understood the potential of the term “local”. Once they caught on to the trend, they started using it in their own creative ways to market the same old products, but with a twist. A very enlightening article on this subject appeared in the New York Times:

Frito Lay is … kicking off a marketing campaign that is trying to position the nation’s best-selling brand of potato chips as local food.

Five different ads will highlight farmers who grow some of the two billion pounds of starchy chipping potatoes the Frito-Lay company uses each year. One is Steve Singleton, who tends 800 acres in Hastings, Fla.

“We grow potatoes in Florida, and Lays makes potato chips in Florida,” he says in the ad. “It’s a pretty good fit.”

For the entire article…

What you need to know:

Organic junk food is still junk food, and similarly, the fact that a manufacturer calls it’s products local does not contribute to your health.

The real meaning behind the local food movement is to promote small farms, enable people to eat in an ecologically responsible manner. This means eating food in its season and not shipping it halfway around the world. It means minimizing waste in petroleum, used both for gasoline and fertilizer. It means keeping the soil healthy so it can continue to provide crops fro decades and centuries to come.

And it means less processed food. it means smaller artisan manufacturers. Which is exactly the opposite of the American way of doing business in the past 100 years (bigger is better, no?).

Watching huge food corporations jumping on this bandwagon is like listening to a bad joke. Don’t get us wrong, there is definitely room for a bag of potato chips and some Dunkin’ Donuts here and there. But please don’t BS us about local…

What to do at the supermarket:

If you want local food, farmer’s markets are usually a good place to go. Some of  Whole Foods Market’s fresh products also state where they were produced, in many cases not too far. But for the most part, a supermarket is the antithesis of local. It could never have grown to offer 40,00o items uniformly and regularly otherwise.

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Americans consume 31 BILLION lbs. of oil a year.

That’s about 100 lbs. per man woman and child, or half a cup of oil every day.

And almost half of the oil we consume is hydrogenated to degree, meaning it contains trans-fat.

But there is hope, according to a recent article in USA Today:

What may be the next big thing in the quest for the perfect low-fat french fry will sprout from Iowa ground this summer.

Pioneer Hi-Bred says its genetically engineered soybean will make an oil that has no artery-clogging trans fats. The high-oleic oil is supposed to last three to five times longer in commercial fryers than most zero-trans-fat oils.

The Johnson, Iowa-based company, the second-largest producer of hybrid seeds for agriculture, will put the soybean through tests to determine whether those claims are true. If so, then McDonald’s, Frito-Lay and other companies may snap up the oil and promote heart-healthy fried foods and chips.

Read more…

What you need to know:

There is a lot of controversy around genetically modified foods, which we won’t get into in this post. Creating an oil that won’t become trans-fat when hydrogenated sounds interesting, but it will probably take years to prove it is safe and does the job. In the meantime, a few things to know:

Trans fat is found in shortenings, margarine, snacks such as crackers, candies, and cookies, fried foods, pastries and other foods prepared with partially hydrogenated vegetable oils

Trans fat labeling on food packages has been mandatory since 2006. But, if a serving has less than o.5 grams of trans-fat, the label may state ZERO. Yes, that includes 0.49 grams in a serving size even a 2 year old would find ridiculously too small. This is a loophole being exploited by some food manufacturers.

What to do at the supermarket:

Try to reduce to zero your trans-fat consumption by examining food labels carefully. If the nutrition panel says 0 trans-fat, it’s a good start, but always take a look at the ingredient list to spot partially hydrogenated oils.

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Frito-Lay, a subsidiary of PepsiCo has figured out just the thing women need more of.

Not fruit, not exercise, not water.

You guessed it – snacks:

Last month the US firm launched its first snack – Smartfood Popcorn Clusters – targeted specifically at women.

Following their premise that the majority of women snack more than men, [PepsiCo] said at the time of the roll out that it seeks to cash in on an estimated $650m in additional sales from women consumers.

John Compton, CEO of PepsiCo Americas Foods, presented the ’smartfood popcorn clusters’ in the context of PepsiCo’s move to ‘Introduce new products for her’.

Listed by PepsiCo in the general criteria for ‘new products for her’ are: make it convenient/portable, ‘help me control my portions’, ‘take away the guilt’, ‘take out the negatives’, make it nutritious, and make it taste ‘great’.

Read more…

What you need to know:

We took a look at the nutrition label of the Cranberry Almond SmartFood Popcorn Clusters to see how smart this snack is.

First, the ingredient list: Cranberries are listed as the #10 ingredient in the list, and almonds are #3, although their placement on the packaging is much more prominent. The #1 ingredient is Brown Rice Syrup – a type of sugar. Popcorn is only the 4th ingredient, just ahead of – sugar! Wasn’t the rice syrup enough?

The nutrition panel is actually OK. Each serving is only 120 calories, and packs 5 grams of fiber through the addition of chicory root to the fiber in popcorn. The 10 grams of sugar are equivalent to 2 teaspoons of sugar, and contribute only 40 calories. And, squarely aiming at women, this product has 20% of the daily value for calcium.

All in all, this snack seems reasonable compared to other greasier, sweeter, fattening alternatives that PepsiCo manufactures.

What to do at the supermarket:

If you have tried out this new snack, we’d love to hear your take on it. Is such a small serving filling enough? How does it taste? Would kids and men like it too?

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