PepsiCo announced yesterday that it will stop selling sugary soft drinks to schools worldwide. The company will

stop sales of full-sugar soft drinks to primary and secondary schools by 2012.  The industry-leading policy establishes for the first time a consistent global approach to the sale of beverages to schools by a major beverage company.

The policy applies in all countries outside the United States, and is generally consistent with the company’s existing U.S. policy, which remains unchanged. read the full press release…

What you need to know:

The timing of this announcement is very interesting. Yesterday Michelle Obama addressed the annual conference of the Grocery Manufacturers Association, a trade group representing food and beverage companies’ business interests. She demanded real improvements in food formulations, not just fancy marketing. She asked for clear nutrition labeling. And she talked about the incessant marketing of junk foods to kids that has not really stopped, despite repeated promises from the industry in the past few years.

Mrs. Obama, for the first time since launching her “Let’s Move” campaign, took on the lead culprit in the obesity fiasco this country has gotten itself mired in – the food and beverage industry. And yet, she was very gentle in her wording and talked mostly about cooperation (carrot) rather than stick (legislation).

Obviously the food industry does not want anyone meddling with their profits and business. Yet it now has to placate a very determined first lady. Is there any behind the scenes diplomacy taking place? Manufacturers bowing to mounting  pressure with token gestures, in return for gentle handling by Mrs Obama and her “Let’s Move” campaign?

Why call Pepsi’s move a token gesture? PepsiCo also owns the Tropicana and Gatorade brands, as well as water (Aquafina) and flavored water (Propel) brands, plus artificially sweetened versions of many brands. The company will not relinquish market share or mind share in schools to its competitors; it will just shift it to other products, some seemingly healthier (juice has as much sugar as cola, with barely any added nutritional benefit).

The days of functioning cold water fountains on every hallway corner at schools are still not here.

What to do at the supermarket:

If schools can make do without soft drinks, why not homes? Give the following a try – go on a seven day tap water diet. Bypass the supermarket’s soft drink aisles and get used to drinking water throughout the day, at meals, and on the road. Good luck.

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The most popular kids TV Network, Nickelodeon, should be ashamed of itself, says the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI), a consumer watchdog group, in its latest expose. The reason: Most of the ads running on the network are for food products that promote obesity, diabetes, and other health problems in young children.

This is especially irritating because the industry set up a self-regulatory body with the Better Business Bureau – the Children’s Food and Beverage Advertising Initiative (CFBAI) – several years ago. Once again, this goes to show that you can’t have the cat watching over the cream. Just as with the ill-fated Smart Choice Program, the nutrition benchmarks that this group have set are – how shall we say – very lenient.

CSPI evaluated the nutritional quality based on the National Alliance for Nutrition and Activity’s (NANA) Model
School Wellness Policies on Physical Activity and Nutrition. It’s a standard supported by over 50 health, nutrition, and education organizations.

Here are some findings:

• Of 425 foods and beverages that were advertised, 267 (60%) were sub par nutritionally (too much sugar, salt or fat, for example).
• 25% of the products had excess sugar.
• None of Pepsico’s 10 products met the nutritional minimum.
• The only bright spot – the figures are slightly better than 4 years ago, when 90% of commercials were for junk food.

You can download the full report here (PDF)

What to do at the supermarket:

My mother recently reminded me how as a 7 year old tagging along on her grocery shopping trips I would pick up a box of cereal I had seen on Saturday Morning cartoons. In a serious tone I would tell her “We need to buy this, mom.” and then add “They said on TV that it’s good for you.” Most often, the box would find itself back on the supermarket shelf.

Luckily, in retrospect, my parents had good sense. And I hope you do too. Teach your children at an early age to read critically, to look for products with good values in nutrition labels. In breakfast cereal for example, sugar should be below 8 grams per serving, and fiber higher than 3 grams. By getting your children involved in the nutrition hunt, they will be more apt to choose better products together with you.

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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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Dr. Eileen Kennedy, dean of Tufts University Friedman School of Nutrition, is still convinced the Smart Choices front of package nutrition label is a good move. Dr. Kennedy is the chairman of the Smart Choices Program which recommends Froot Loops and Snackables as Smart choices. Unlike the representatives American Dietetic Association and the American Diabetic Association that backed off the program, she is standing her ground.

In a letter to her alumni, Dr. Kennedy makes the case for Smart Choices by pointing to 3 advantages:

1. Smart Choices is intended to improve food patterns at point of purchase – the super markets.

2. The program was tested prior to launch with consumers.

3. food companies who participate in the program have agreed to abandon their proprietary systems and adopt one system – the Smart Choices Program.

Here’s why the logic is  flawed, point by point:

1. Who said that Smart Choices will improve food purchase patterns? The only thing the program is guaranteed to improve is sales of products with the Smart Choices logo.

2. Testing and surveys can be crafted to get any answer the testers want.

3. The proprietary Smart Choices Program did away with PepsiCo’s SmartSpot and Kraft’s Sensible Solutions and created a unified system, but it’s not the only one out there. Several grocery chains have come out with their own systems, and then there’s NuVal too. So consumers are going to be just as confused as they have been before.

What to do at the supermarket:

Treat the Smart Choices, or any other claims and logos, as marketing speak. If you want to know about nutrition – look at the ingredient list and nutrition facts panel.

[Once again, hat tip to to Professor Marion Nestle's Food Politics Blog]

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Taxing soda pop, which seemed like a crazy idea just 12 months ago, is gaining traction with academics and politicians.

Recently, President Obama said a soda tax is “an idea that we should be exploring.” And in a research paper published yesterday by the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM), a team of 7 scientists recommend taxing every fluid ounce of sugary soft drink by one penny. Those pennies add up to $15 billion annually that the federal government can spend on consumer education and healthcare.

The recommendations are based on research that shows:

1. consumption of sugary drinks has directly contributed to obesity in the US.

2. raising the price of soft drinks will reduce its consumption.

Of course the beverage industry is all over this, and in it multimillion dollar campaign, including a website nofoodtaxes.com, states:

Discriminatory and punitive taxes on soda and juice drinks do not teach our children to have a healthy lifestyle and have no meaningful impact on child obesity or public health. They just further burden working families already struggling in this trying economy.

Muhtar Kent, CEO of the Coca Cola Company calls a soda tax “outrageous” and likens the very thought of it to a communist conspiracy:

“I have never seen it work where a government tells people what to eat and what to drink. It if worked, the Soviet Union would still be around.”

Mr Kent is right, the government shouldn’t decide for consumers what to eat or drink.

But it should protect consumers from unscrupulous corporations who are literally shoving junk food and drinks down our throats. Everywhere we turn, soft drink machines, snack dispensers, candies, chocolate bars, more soda, more snacks. Not to mention the endless commercials, advertisements, and other branding brainwashing activities all aimed to increase our consumption and their profit.

However, as we have suggested in the past, taxing the consumer is not the way to go.

What the government should do is to tax these corporations, big time. This, through mechanisms similar to carbon offsets in the industrial sector. Let’s call these calorie offsets for now.

Here’s how calorie offsets would work:

for every ton of added sweetener (sugar or corn syrup), a company would contribute $3000 to government programs aimed at obesity reduction. Three thousand dollars is equivalent to the penny per ounce tax suggested by the NEJM.

This suggestion will likely infuriate Mr. Kent and his friends at the ABA even more than taxing consumers. So what. Coca Cola and PepsiCo are among the most profitable companies in the food industry. The Coca Cola company, worth $120 Billion, had a net profit of $6 billion last year on sales of $30 billion. Not bad for a company that sells water and fizz mixed with high fructose corn syrup and artificial colors.

What are the advantages of Calorie Offsets?

1. They reduce the profitability of sugary drinks and encourage manufacturers to shift to healthier products.

2. If a company chooses to raise prices of soft drinks to maintain margins, that’s perfectly fine. Market forces will work for the benefit of the consumer. Shoppers will now revolt against said company by buying from its competitor. The government won’t be the scapegoat. We’ll see then who’s accused of discriminatory and punitive taxes.

3. The offset money will be marked and used, of course, to undo the the damage to the public health and to educate the public.

To summarize, as their customers are getting fatter and sicker, beverage industry shareholders are getting richer and richer. The government should require these companies to directly foot the bill for the damage that they are causing to the public.

What to do at the supermarket:

A suggestion for those of you concerned about a potential soda tax – A family of 4 can save $500 a year just by switching from soft drinks to tap water.

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The concept of a soda tax has been floating around for a while. The idea is to tax sugary drinks in order to help reduce demand and also foot the bill for obesity related disease treatment down the road. The penny per ounce tax will supposedly reduce consumption by a few percent and raise billions of dollars over the next decade.

Proponents claim that, just like tobacco taxes helped reduce demand for cigarettes, so will a tax on sugary drinks. Opponents claims that such a tax is unfair because there’s not one single cause for obesity. Why not tax butter and potato chips as well?

Even though there’s currently no pending legislation at the federal or state level in the US, the beverage industry is taking no chances, according to USA Today.

The American Beverage Association has begun a $2 million ad campaign to oppose a tax on sugar-sweetened drinks, depicting it as a tax on “simple pleasures.”

Last month, the group joined forces with the National Restaurant Association and the Grocery Manufacturers Association to launch Americans Against Food Taxes, a coalition of 110 state and local groups.

Read more…

We don’t like soft drinks in the American diet. We wish people would consume less because soft drinks have no nutritional value and contribute to obesity.

But more taxes for Americans suck. We don’t like the government reaching in to our wallets. Here’s a better idea. Read more…

The “Smart Choices” front of package food labeling scheme officially launches this week. 500 Packaged foods from ConAgra, General Mills, Kellogg’s, Kraft, PepsiCo, Sun-Maid, Tyson and Unilever are already approved.

The program hopes to take nutrition confusion out of your life by presenting a simple green check mark on the front of packaged foods that have passed a nutrition benchmark.

While we applaud the initiative to simplify food nutrition information, Smart Choices has substantial drawbacks, which we outlined in the past.

Granted, there are several advantages, such as simplicity, uniformity across brands, and the front-and-center calorie information provided on some labels. However, we think that this industry backed initiative, along with fifteen others was born in a vacuum created by the lack of initiative of the FDA.

Here are six reasons why Smart Choices won’t really help shoppers. Read more…

Japan gets hot in the summer. A hot Tokyo train ride during rush hour is no treat. So cold beverages are available for sale in vending machines all over town.

Now, catering to growing interest in healthy drinks, both Coca Cola and Pespico are unveiling local versions of “healthy soft drinks”. (Don’t you just love this oxymoron?)

The San Francisco Chronicle reports that while Coke is going for the classic green tea play, Pepsi  will introduce a more exotic basil leaf “Pepsi Shiso” later this month.

What you need to know:

Folks – it’s liquid candy, and we don’t care if they added a vitamin or an antioxidant to make you believe otherwise.

What to do at the supermarket:

Save $500 a year by switching to tap water! If you must get your antioxidants from a beverage, look for unsweetened iced teas.

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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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There’s an old Indian proverb - God laughs when a thief steals from a thief.

PepsiCo is suing the Coca-Cola Company over claims that its new sports drink Powerade Ion4, is more complete than Pespi’s  Gatorade.

Seems like Coke just lifted a page from Pepsi’s marketing playbook. And Pepsi is mad.

While nobody here is a thief, both corporations are making gazillions selling us liquid candy, and sports drinks are no exception. This lawsuit is part of a marketing battle, no less, no more.

What you need to know:

Sports drink are a huge business with over $7.5 Billion in sales in 2008, just in the US.

Gatorade is the undisputed champ with over 75% market share, with Powerade at number two with over 20% of the market.

From a nutritional standpoint, both companies’ sports drinks are mostly water, sweeteners , salt, questionable food colorings, and a few more vitamins and minerals in tiny amounts. The sweetener of choice is, of course, high fructose corn syrup (equivalent to 4 teaspoons of sugar in a 12 oz bottle).

The fact that Powerade contains magnesium and Gatorade doesn’t is more trivial than where Paris Hilton partied last week.

Nutrition Info:

“But what about all those electrolytes I lose while sweating”, you may ask.

Powerade boasts 2 electrolytes that Gatorade does not have – 2.5 mg of calcium, and 1.2 mg of magnesium. Sorry to disappoint you folks, the amount of calcium your body needs each day is 1000 mg. Do you really think Powerade is going to help with less than 1% of that? Same for 1.2 mg of magnesium comapred to the 400 mg daily requirement.

Gatorade is no better. Nobody in the Western World needs 110 mg of extra sodium, especially not in a soft drink. We are already consuming far more than the daily recommended value of 2300mg. And the 30 grams of potassium provided is less than 1% of the 3500 mg our bodies need.

Unless you are a super athlete (marathons, professional sports, etc…) all you need in order to replenish after a 30 minute workout is good ol’ tap water and maybe a banana, some nuts, or a sandwhich.

Oh, and by the way, all those cool sounding flavors are NOT the result of any real fruit in the drink.

What to do at the supermarket:

Leave the sports drink to the NFL and NBA superstars

Do yourself and your family a favor. Save $500 a year by quitting carbonated drinks, including the so called sports drinks. Spend the money on real sports products and services – good running shoes or a gym membership.

Simply stated: Just skip the beverage aisle at the supermarket.

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