Are you a loyal fan of a specific cereal brand? Is it the flavor? The nutritional value you once took the time to look up? The only thing your kids will eat? Well here’s some bad news. Manufacturers can, and often do, change product formulations, and you don’t even know about it. Sometimes the changes are not necessarily in the consumers best interest.

Thanks to Marion Nestle’s Food Politics blog for pointing out a falling out between loyal customers and Cascadian Farms, an organic food manufacturer that was acquired by General Mills in 1999. (To be precise, it was actually acquired by Small Planet Foods earlier in the 1990’s. General Mills acquired Small Planet in 1999)

The issue at hand – Cascadian Farm Purely O’s Cereal and a recent reformulation that TRIPLED the sugar count without notifying consumers. The company’s website is abuzz with rants by (ex)-loyal customers:

As a mother of three, and devoted Cascadian Farm consumer, I can’t imagine why more sugar was added to previously excellent product. We consumed about 2,3 boxes of Purely O’s per week until my children all the sudden told med how they tasted differently. Naively, I thought it would be marked on the box if any changes of the products had taken place…then I noticed the increased sugar content. This made us lose faith in your entire brand.

OR

How you can call this cereal “Purely O’s” is beyond me. SUGAR!!??? Really???? CORN?? Really?? Why do we need another corn based,sugary cereal in the grocery aisles? And it is very sneaky to not announce a change on the box.

What you need to know:

In the past, Purely O’s had a front of pack label claiming “No added sugar”. This label disappeared a while ago. Then in October, the company changed its product formulation, without informing consumers.

To be fair, the increase in sugar is from 1 gram to 3 gram, which still leaves these O’s a better choice than virtually all other sweetened cereals.

The company lowered the sodium content from 280 to 200mg, which is commendable, but still too high for a breakfast cereal.

Other changes include removing whole grain barley flour and instead using corn meal. To compensate for the fiber loss, they’ve added oat fiber. The total fiber count hasn’t changed and is 3 grams per serving, the minimum you should be getting from a breakfast cereal.

So why hide the change? It’s not like people won’t notice – the ingredient list and nutrition panel are on the box, for crying out loud. Why the need for all this sneakiness? Didn’t General Mills know it would lose its loyal base of Cascadian Farms fans? Most likely, a focus group showed that the loss of a few loyal fans would be compensated for by an influx of new consumers for whom 3 grams of sugar is a 60-70% reduction.

We’ve updated the CerealScan database to reflect these changes. Cascadian Farm Purely O’s is still a top scorer, but for a group of (no longer) loyal customers, that doesn’t matter anymore.

What to do at the supermarket:

When buying a breakfast cereal, look for low sugar (6 or less grams. 3 grams is considered very low), high fiber (3 or more grams), and less than 150mg sodium per serving. Obviously, artificial colors are a big No No. These factors are much more important factors for your heath than whether the cereal is organic or not.

And just to reiterate, despite the changes, Purely O’s are still a better choice than most other cereals out there.

Get Fooducated: RSS Subscription or Email Subscription

Follow us on twitter: twitter.com/fooducate

New! Choose a better breakfast with CerealScan™ by Fooducate (it’s Free!)

Image via Wikipedia

The first decade of the millennium brought both good and bad developments in the food and nutrition space. Mostly, this decade was a wake up call for many families and individuals that they cannot blindly trust government and market powers to provide the healthy food that they deserve.

2001 – Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal, by investigative reporter Eric Schlosser, is published. People begin to understand that there is a very high price society is paying for cheap food.

2003 – The FDA announces plans to permit food manufacturers to make “qualified health claims”. Industry can now rely on “Some scientific evidence” or “Very limited and preliminary scientific research” to make a health claim. Opponents criticize it as opening the door to ill-founded claims. Advocates believe it will make more information available to the public. We shoppers get more confusing marketing messages than ever.

2003 – the low carb diet craze is launched with the publication of the South Beach Diet. The trend peaked in 2004 and pretty much died off by the end of 2005.

2004 – Morgan Spurlock’s Supersize Me, a documentary film following the health of its director eating only McDonald’s for an entire month, is released and meets with mixed reactions. Fast food chains duck for cover.

2004 – Passage of the Food Allergy Labeling and Consumer Protection Act. Requires labeling of any food that contains one or more of: peanuts, soybeans, cow’s milk, eggs, fish, crustacean shellfish, tree nuts, and wheat. People suffering from allergies still confused over statements such as “produced in a factory which also processes peanuts”.

2005 – Blogging goes mainstream, and people find new and useful sources of information on any subject, including food, nutrition, and health.

2006 – Wal-Mart joins the Organic Food bandwagon, signaling the mass acceptance of a once hippy movement.

2006 – Trans-fat is proclaimed the new evil. It’s labeling is required on all packaged foods. As a result, many manufacturers reformulate their products.

2007 – Author, professor, and food lover Michael Pollan publishes The Omnivore’s Dilemma, and continues the theme of Schlosser’s Fast Food Nation. The result is a mass yearning for organic, sustainable fare. A follow-up book in 2008, In Defense of Food, argues against the “nutritionism” and suggests a creation of a food culture where  we “Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.”

2008 – COOL (country of origin) Labeling goes into effect. fresh beef, pork, and lamb. After repeated debilitation and stakeholder pressures, the law that was enacted in the 2002 Farm Bill finally went into effect on Oct 1, 2008, and even then with many loopholes.

2008-9 – Front of Pack Nutrition Labeling becomes a food industry pastime, with over 15 different systems competing who will become the dominant player. In late 2009, the FDA decides to start thinking of maybe possibly beginning a process of evaluation which could eventually lead to government regulation in this area. While Guiding Stars and NuVal still survive, Smart Choices is nixed.

2009 – In January, a salmonella outbreak caused by a dirty peanut butter processing plant in Georgia, leads to one of the largest recalls of products in the history of supermarkets. Hundreds of products are recalled after the unnecessary deaths of innocent peanut butter aficionados.

2009 – As the recession takes hold, many  turn to comfort foods. Although home cooked meals are generally healthier and cheaper than restaurant fare, McDonalds’s stock has never done better. Coupon usage increases for the first time since 1992.

Here’s a graph of McDonald’s (red)  vs. Whole Foods Market (blue) stock performance over the course of the decade. How’s your (nutrition) performance changed over the last 10 years?

Note #1 : Apologies for not mentioning any TV shows, of which surely some deserve mention, as we have not watched TV since the late 1990’s. Perhaps a fastidious reader would like to add these in the comments section.

Note #2:  many good ideas for this post appeared in Delish.

Get Fooducated: RSS Subscription or Email Subscription

Follow us on twitter: twitter.com/fooducate

Help us test our new food comparison tool: alpha.fooducate.com

Image via Wikipedia

The blogosphere is in a frenzy. A new, comprehensive study from the UK, has proclaimed that there is no nutritional benefit to organic food, nor is there any health benefit. Organic supporters are tearing apart at the conclusions, while many conventionalists are reveling in the news.

The study was conducted by the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and is summarized by one of the researchers: “Our review indicates there is currently no evidence to support the selection of organic over conventionally produced foods on the basis of nutritional superiority.”

Surveying 50,000 studies conducted over 50 years, the authors focused on 55 that met their standards of scientific rigor. The studies that led to the group’s controversial conclusions covered a wide range of crops and livestock that are raised and marketed under organic standards. For 10 out of 13 food crops studied, the researchers found no significant differences. Where they did find differences, those were attributed to differences in fertilizer use (say, the use of nitrogen vs. phosphorus) and the ripeness level at which the crops were harvested. The authors judged the differences observed “unlikely” to “provide any health benefit” to consumers.

read more [LA Times Blog]…

Not wanting to take sides on whether the finding are legit or not, we’d like to present the case that, from a personal nutritional perspective, most people have more immediate issues to take care of.

Read more…

Horizon Organic, the country’s largest organic milk products distributor, has recently announced a new line of “all natural” products. This is dismaying to many fans of the organic movement, because it would cause an erosion in revenue and profit to organic farmers.

You see, “Natural” is an undefined term, at least from a regualtory perspective. Which means products labeled “Natural” will enjoy the Horizon aura of health, but cost far less to manufacture, reaping a hefty profit to Horizon.

The first products are toddler yogurts, called Little Blends, and are expected to roll out later this month. Milk Breakers, a boxed vanilla / chocolate drink is slated for later this year.

According to Horizon, their natural products will be produced “without added hormones, artificial sweeteners, artificial colors, flavors, preservatives or high fructose corn syrup.” [source: LA Times]

What you need to know:

This is a great marketing move by Dean Foods, the mega dairy corporation that acquired Horizon back in 2003. In professional lingo this is called brand extension. You take the well known spotted cow logo of Horizon Organic and plaster it on new line of products.

What’s deceptive here, is that the new product line is NOT organic. The amorphous “all natural” claim is not defined by the FDA or USDA, although a  an FDA spokeswoman said “the agency does not object to using the term on food labels ‘in a manner that is truthful and not misleading’ and if the product has no added color, artificial flavors, or synthetic substances.”

But this is too open ended. For example, High Fructose Corn Syrup is considered by some manufacturers as a natural product, because it is made from corn.

“All natural” foods are one of the fastest growing product categories in the US in the past year. It’s no wonder all the big manufacturers are jumping on board. It’s great for sales, because it lets consumers feel good about their choice, even with no real backing.

At the end of the day, this move will deteriorate even further consumer perception of differences between organic and natural food. This ultimately hurts organic farmers, who are already struggling in a tough economy.

Horizon has previously been called out for production practices claimed to be out of line with organic principles. It seems that the bigger you grow as a company, the harder it is to adhere to your original beliefs and principles.

And don’t get us started on toddler yogurts. What’s the problem with junior enjoying a regular yogurt? Is it caffeinated? Does it have alcoholic content? But that’s the subject for another post.

What to do at the supermarket:

Don’t get duped by “Natural” labels. They do not necessarily mean the product is healthy for you. If you want no growth hormones, antibiotics, and free pastured cows, you’ll have to cough up the cash to pay for the more expensive organic products.

And if you are buying conventional, look beyond the front of package marketing hype and read the nutrition panel carefully. Look at daily values for nutrients and examine the ingredient list.  A high amount of fat and sugar in a product may count as natural, but they definitely do not make it a healthy food.

Get Fooducated: RSS Subscription or Email Subscription

Follow us on twitter: twitter.com/fooducate

Help us test our new food comparison tool: alpha.fooducate.com

One of the hottest trends right now in food marketing is informing consumers that the animal product they are purchasing was derived from an animal that was humanely raised and treated.This includes, dairy, eggs, poultry, beef, pork, and other meats.

Since there is no FDA definition for “humane”, each processor is free to associate this and similar terms with its products. As a result, factory farms have magically become animal friendly. And “no antibiotics” conjures an idealic Garden of Eden for bovines. The truth, of course, is far from that.

What’s an ethical shopper, or one attempting to lessen the plight of lower beings, to do?

What you need to know:

Luckily the World Society for the Protection of Animals (WSPA) has information to help you make decisions. Their website categorizes the various humane labels based on their REAL humaneness, not marketing. While “cage free” eggs are a good option, this label does not mean the chickens were free range. Also, it is not verified by a third party.  A better option is “Certified Organic”.  The best labels are the following:

“Certified Humane” (dairy, eggs, chicken, turkey, beef, lamb, pork)
“American Humane Certified” (dairy, eggs, chicken, turkey, beef, lamb, pork)
“Animal Welfare Approved” (dairy, eggs, chicken, turkey, duck, goose, beef, lamb, pork, rabbit)

In addition, WSPA publishes an annual report, where they rank the top grocers based on animal friendly products. Whole Foods is the leader, but Publix,  Kroger, and Hy-Vee have a good showing as well.

WSPA even put together a helpful FAQs Page.

What to do at the supermarket:

Unfortunately for consumers and animals, humane foods tend to cost more, especially the organic variety. For many people there is a clash between the will to eat more humanely and their pocketbooks. Each family should decide what works best for them, but at least you should be informed about what you are or aren’t getting.

Get Fooducated: RSS Subscription or Email Subscription

Follow us on twitter: twitter.com/fooducate

Help us test our new food comparison tool: alpha.fooducate.com

Those giant shiny apples and tomatoes stacked neatly at the produce stand at the supermarket are a marvel of nature. With a lot of help from man. And man’s chemicals.

In order to keep pests from blemishing your fruits and vegetables, farmers spend a fare share of their time and budget on hundreds of chemical solutions. Here are some crazy facts from a group called Pesticide Action Network:

1. 888 million lbs of pesticide are applied each year in the US – about 3 lbs per person.

2. Atrazine, a pesticide that has been banned in Europe, is found in 71% of US drinking water. It’s a hormone disruptor.

3. An average Amercian child gets over 5 “servings” of pesticide residue in their food and water, daily

4. A single strawberry can contain 22 different pesticide residues.

What you need to know:

The problem with pesticides is that they are persistent, they stay in our food even after vigorous washing. Some accumulate in our bodies over years. Not to mention the environmental impact in the soil and water sources. Or the poor farm workers who get sick after handling these toxic chemicals on a daily basis.

The folks at Pesticide Action Network have put together a searchable database where you can see which chemicals are used on which products, and the effect on our bodies. Quite scary.

The effect these residues have on fetuses, infants, and young children is much greater than on adults, so parents should be especially wary.

But please, don’t let this be your excuse not to eat fruit and vegetables! When put into the right context, it is much riskier to your health not to get the nutrients from produce than to be exposed to the pesticide residue.

What to do at the supermarket:

So what’s a worried parent to do?

Switching to organic food seems like a great solution, only it’s out of reach for most people due to the very high price of most organic vegetables, and even higher prices for organic fruit.

An approach taken by many people is selective organic consumption, choosing to go organic for the most heavily chemically drenched products, while sticking to conventional for the rest.

Here are the “dirty dozen” which are simply put, pesticide coated produce. you should buy these organic:

Apples, Bell Peppers, Celery, Cherries, Grapes, Nectarines, Peaches, Pears, Potatoes, Raspberries, Spinach, Strawberries

And for these items, don’t spend more for organic:

Asparagus, Avocado, Bananas, Broccoli, Cauliflower, Corn, Garlic, Kiwi, Mangoes, Onions, Peas, Pineapples

Get Fooducated: RSS Subscription or Email Subscription

Follow us on twitter: twitter.com/fooducate

Help us test our new food comparison tool: alpha.fooducate.com

Last week we got a refreshing email from the Fruit Guys, who run a fresh fruit (and vegetable) delivery service in key metropolitan areas across the country. here’s their story:

The Fruit Guys is a green and sustainability-focused company that delivers farm-fresh, organic & conventional fruit to offices across the country. The FruitGuys recently launched their home delivery service, making it easy for everyone to access the best locally produced fruit. Each fruit crate delivered includes a delicious mix of bananas, oranges, apples and seasonal fruit. During peak season 70-90% of the fruit mixes offered are locally grown within the regions they serve (East Coast, Midwest, West Coast) and literally go from the farm to home or office within 3-4 days.

And in the San Francisco Bay area they do veggies too.

Would we want to try out a fresh crate?

Who could refuse.

We had the box shipped to faithful reader Zack S and his family, and here is what they said. Read more…

Each year, 18,000 new products are introduced to supermarkets across the country.

With temperatures rising and summer almost here, beverage manufacturers are in high gear, promoting their new drinks. (Our local waterworks are not so industrious. Same old tap water, again.)

So we weren’t surprised when, a few weeks ago, we got an email from juice company R.W. Knudsen informing us of a new product line launching this month called Sparkling Essence.

We had our loyal reader Brook from Eugene, Oregon try out the drinks with his family and friends. In the meantime we analyzed the nutrition info.

Click on to learn what Brook had to say,  what his mother-in-law thought, and how this drink stacks up nutritionally… Read more…

We recently reviewed several healthy snack options,  fruit leathers, and freeze dried fruit. Today, a look at another option – Bear Fruit Bars. We’d like to thank reader Sarah S, a Fooducate Product Tester, for her feedback.

Bear Fruit Bars are manufactured by a small company called Mountain Organic Foods and come in four flavors – Organic Apple, Organic Apple Cherry, Organic Apple Raspberry, Organic Apple Blueberry. As you can see, the main motive here is apples. The Bear guys operate an organic  orchard in the Hood River Valley in Oregon.

So how did these organic snacks stack up?
Read more…

Image via Wikipedia

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.

Get Fooducated: RSS Subscription or Email Subscription

Follow us on twitter: twitter.com/fooducate

Help us test our new food comparison tool: alpha.fooducate.com