When will food marketers give us a break?

If it isn’t enough we have to deal with acai berry internet scams, now top manufacturers like Kraft are pushing acai at us in snacks?

The new strawberry acai sugar free gelatin may be a great tasting snack, but please Kraft, don’t lay the bogus health halo on consumers.

What you need to know:

Unfortunately, Jell-O’s website does not provide any nutrition information regarding its products (perhaps because there’s not too much to talk about). Here is what we got from the supermarket on Raspberry Goji flavor:

Ingredient list: Water, Gelatin, Contains Less than 0.5% of AD/PIC and Citric Acid (for Tartness), Sodium Citrate (Controls Acidity), Aspartame and Acesulfame Potassium (Sweeteners), Salt, Red 40, Blue 1, Natural and Artificial Flavor, Vitamin E Acetate, Beta Carotene.

Did you notice that there is absolutely no real fruit in here? This despite the beautiful images of berries on the package…

On to the ingredient glossary:
Gelatin (E441) – gelatin is derived from the collagen in the bones of animals and fish. It’s what makes plain water become Jell-o.
Adipic Acid – an artificial substance used in creating nylon. In foods it is used to aid gelling and as a flavorant (would that by nylon flavor?).
Citric Acid (for Tartness) – a natural preservative that is used in beverages to add an acidic, sour taste. Although it is naturally found in citrus fruit (oranges, lemons), industry has a found a cheaper way to manufacture it. This is through a fermentation process in which a mold called Aspergillus niger is used to ferment a carbohydrate such as molasses. sounds grosser than it really is.
Sodium Citrate (Controls Acidity) – a food additive. Tastes a bit salty and a bit tart.
Aspartame and Acesulfame Potassium (Sweeteners) – these are zero calorie sweeteners but some studies suggest that prolonged usage, especially if begun as a child, increase the risk of cancer.
Red 40 – the most popular artificial food coloring. Food manufacturers in the EU have been asked to remove it from their products.
Blue 1 – an artificial color. some studies showed that it may cause cancer.
Natural and Artificial Flavor – that’s what makes it taste like raspberry goji jello (as if most of us even know what goji or acai taste like naturally…)
Vitamin E Acetate – a form of vitamin E
Beta Carotene – a precursor, or inactive form of vitamin A

The nutrition label is simple – 10 calories, no fat, no carbs, 1 gram of protein. No vitamin A, despite the fact that beta carotne is listed as an ingredient. No vitamin C, no any vitamin or mineral as a matter of fact.

So where are the antioxidants, you ask?

They’re in the citric acid and added vitamins, but how effective and bio-available are they when detached from their natural form? Science still does not have an answer.

Wouldn’t eating a fresh apple or a banana be a better source? Of course it would, but Kraft doesn’t sell those items. They’re not profitable.

What to do at the supermarket:

Jell-O is a fun treat and very young children can enjoy it. Heck, we loved it as kids.

But the artificial food colorings are worrying. The artificial sweeteners even more so.

So, if you really must, at least choose the “regular” sweetened version (Yes, that means sugar and high fructose corn syrup).

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A bit of good news this week. 16 million less Americans are drinking sugary soft drinks now compared to 6 years ago (68% of adults vs 76%). This, from a report published by Mintel, a marketing research firm.

What are we drinking instead?
That’s the bad news:
1. 7.8 million switched to diet soft drinks.
2. 24 million added bottled water to their shopping carts. (the healthiest choice, but oh so many plastic bottles…)
3. 17 million more gulped down energy drinks. (the caffeine, the calories…)
4. 11 million additional future Olympians opted for sports drinks. (the broken dream of  enhancement…)

The study also found that 16% of Americans are concerned about high-fructose corn syrup, while 15% are worried about artificial sweeteners in diet drinks.

At the same time, an academic research report affirms what dietitians have been telling us for quite some time: cutting calories from sugary drinks may be more effective for weight loss than reducing the same amount in solid foods.

The study was  conducted by Liwei Chen, M.D., Ph.D., M.H.S., assistant professor of epidemiology, School of Public Health, LSU Health Science Center, New Orleans and published this week in  the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition:

One reason for this [finding] is that the body is able to self-regulate its intake of solid food. For example, if you eat too much solid food at lunch, you’ll tend to eat less at dinner. But the same self-regulation is not there for what you drink, experts say. Your body does not adjust to liquid calories, so over time, you gain more weight, Chen explained.

Thestudy “supports what many have suspected — liquid calories don’t satisfy,” said Connie Diekman, director of university nutrition at Washington University in St. Louis. “In addition, the identification that [sugar-sweetened beverages] can impact weight gain more than other liquids is an important message as Americans continue to work to lower their calories.”

more details…

What you need to know:

Soft drinks are a very lucrative market for the food industry. The raw materials are dirt cheap (water, sugar, food coloring), and the returns are very high.

The top 2 players in the US, The Coca Cola Company and PepsiCo, are well aware of shifting trends in consumer preferences and have plenty to continue to offer us from their quiver of brands picked up over years of consolidation.

What to do at the supermarket:

Here’s a radical idea. Why not skip the beverage aisle next time you go shopping?

Tap water in the US is clean, refreshing, and of negligible cost.

In fact, a family of 4 will save over $500 in grocery bills by just quitting soft drinks.

What are you waiting for?

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Orange juice is awesome. Nothing like the refreshing juice of 3 or 4 fresh squeezed oranges, tart and sweet at the same time, and chock full of nutrients.

If there’s one company that has turned orange juice into an art form, it’s got to be Tropicana (now a part of PepsiCo). They’ve got a gazillion different varieties, regular juice, light juice, fortified with this mineral, adding that vitamin, more pulp, less pulp, mixed with juice from other fruit, in plastic, carton, small, large, extra large…

It seems that just orange juice takes half up an aisle at the supermarket all by itself.

Therefore it was no surprise that earlier this week Tropicana announced a new line of orange juice under the brand name Trop50. From their PR department:

Breakthrough innovation with the goodness of orange juice and 50 percent less sugar and calories

What exactly is the breakthrough? Read more…