Kellogg’s is going to war over Mexico’s nutrition label rules. A similar fight is coming to the U.S.
statnews.com
Kellogg’s is waging a war here over Tigre Toño and Sam el Tucán.
A 2019 policy requires companies that make unhealthy foods to include warning labels on the front of any boxes they sell in Mexico to educate consumers about things like excess sugar and fat. Any food with a warning label — like Kellogg’s Fruit Loops or its Frosted Flakes, which typically contain more than 37 grams of added sugar in a 100-gram serving — is also banned from including a mascot on its packaging.
Kelloggs has been on the wrong side of history from its conception when they tried to make people stop jerking it
Thats why i jerk into the Kelloggs boxes in the store.
Any flavour preferences?
That's gross, where exactly do you do that so I can avoid it? And what Cereal is it again?
So I can avoid it of course...
He's the one that frosts the flakes.
Kellogg would be rotating in his grave. The dude was OBSESSED with the healthfulness of cereal (or at least his weird version of it) and his company namesake basically peddles candy in cereal form to children.
Dude thought that meat and flavorful food caused sexual desire and lead to masturbation. He was an anti-masturbation crusader and invented his breakfast cereal to help decrease sexual desire.
I'm no fan of poisoning our youth and ourselves with sugar, but I do smile at such a puritanical legacy being so obscenely destroyed.
I'd be a god today if all those thousands of bowls of cereal I pounded down in my youth were actually healthy.
Don't forget to finish your Orange Juice!
Chile started using these some years back. I honestly like them. We also did the mascot ban as well, so no Tony the Tiger, and even Pringles cans have a censored face
The question I have, are sales of these products down? Do these implementations work to reduce unhealthy consumption? Are hospitals and medical offices seeing less revenue? If they don't actually work, what will?
At least according to the studies, and reports from people I work with and friends, yes, they do seem to work. Here you can read a Google translated article talking about the effects since the law came into effect in Chile in 2016: https://www-ciperchile-cl.translate.goog/2021/05/24/ley-de-etiquetado-evaluando-sus-efectos-en-consumidores-y-empresas-de-alimentos/?_x_tr_sl=es&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en&_x_tr_pto=wapp
It's good to note that another consequence of this law, is that apart from the mascots being prohibited, it's also prohibited to play ads for unhealthy foods (not sure if they need to specifically target children, or not) aren't allowed until after a certain hour in the evening, like 9:00pm or something.
We don't have that sort of data, at least not enough to determine a causal link. But the cereal manufacturers have tons of research on the best way to sell cereal. So consider the inverse. Would a cereal company need to place a cartoon mascot on the box to help sell unhealthy food to children? Would they fight so hard to keep them there if it wasn't effective?
Every medical scientist would agree that too much sugar is unhealthy. And looking at the nutritional info on the box, these foods have too much sugar. What good is a mascot in the face of cold, hard science? If it appeals to children, they will apply pressure to their parents who will purchase the food "as a treat." And as a treat, a little sugar isn't a big deal. But those kids could be equally excited about a pack of candy or some cookies, which are actual treats, not a part of your daily routine. Without Tony El Tigre, Frosted Flakes look like sugar coated khaki pocket lint. They might enjoy eating them, but they won't clamor for them in the grocery aisle.
We need pics. We've never seen that in North America
If nutrition labels bothers them so much, why not just make the cereal more nutritious and less full of shit? It's not hard to see that there is a solution that doesn't involve looking like a villain with an army of lawyers to fight a label.
Because changing your product, which specifically appeals to the target purchasers because of what you're changing, is going to make your product revenue take a nose dive? It should be obvious why they're fighting it with lawyers. Hopefully the laws are ironclad and upheld so Kellogg's gets their shit pushed in.
But their products are known for being high fiber content, so unfortunately, they'll push their shit right back out. 😆
Dear god, more than a third of Froot Loops and Frosted Flakes is sugar?!
And that's not the worst I have seen. Things like raisins are basically flavoured sugar.
But they're dried grapes and mostly without added sugar. We shouldn't need to live in a world where raisins are sold "now with less sugar". Humans spent hundreds of years cultivating eating grapes to be as sweet as they are...
Most raisin Bran cereal (including Kellogg's) coat the raisins in more sugar! https://www.seriouseats.com/cereal-eats-the-great-raisin-bran-off
The sugar we know isn't that different. It's essentially a dried plant too but with stuff removed.
Sure adding sugar is another big issue. But fruits aren't that great for us either. Certainly better to eat an apple than drink apple juice though.
Actually fruits are pretty great for us, if they aren't highly processed.
Better to eat an apple than drink apple juice, also better to eat an apple than just about anything from the supermarket that isn't fresh.
Of course, you still need a balanced diet, and you can't get nearly all the necessary nutrients from just apples. Still, assuming an otherwise nutrient-complete diet, it's a lot less healthy to eat a slice of frozen pizza than an apple or a banana. (the apple might even contain less available sugar than the pizza slice - people often overestimate how much sugar fruits really contain)
The "stuff removed" bit is more important than you seem to give it credit for. Take out all the fiber and water and sure it's still the same sugars that are left over, but we didn't evolve to consume large quantities of pure sugar, so it spikes our insulin and gets stored as excess fat.
Fruit juice is pretty unhealthy, because all the sugar is more available due to all the fiber being stripped out and you can consume a dozen apples' worth in a few minutes, which you wouldn't do with actual apples.
Sure, there's not that much fiber left in raisins either. But in the context of musli they can be combined with whole grains and nuts, so you get enough fiber back to make the sugar less quickly digested and thus more healthy.
A third of the entire cereal mix being sugar is definitely worse than musli with raisins (which comes to about 10g of sugar per 100g), especially considering that a good portion of the rest of the mass in the case of musli is made up of fiber, proteins and healthy fats.
Adding sugar isn't just "another big issue", it's the big issue. Eating fresh fruits is a non-issue, and usually so is eating dried fruits in moderation.
There is a whole lot of things that aren't fresh but are good for us and better than fruits. Interesting statement.
I've been trying to think of things commonly sold in supermarkets that are not fresh and that are more healthy than fruits, and after a few minutes I have to say I came up blank.
Maybe vegetable soup? Not sure if you can get a good soup at the supermarket.
Care to share a few examples?
Whole grains, lentils, frozen vegetables, plenty of meats, fish, eggs. These come to mind. In the perfect world I would give fruits a blanket stamp of approval (I know right, the self-importance). But almost nobody I know don't already have plenty of sugar in their diet, which means fruits just compound that. That's not to mention that selective breeding has made our fruits unnecessarily sweet (try the most popular apple types after not having any sweets for a few weeks).
Of course though, there are lots of fruits and many of them are great as long as they're not processed (e.g. smoothies).
I generally just go for vegetables. Getting into them can be tough but once you do they're a game changer for your palate.
Pedanticism aside, fruits are miles better than almost any sweets. So if you do manage to replace cake time with fruit time, congrats. That's a huge step.
I think you're both on the same side of things but had a comm glitch on the word "fresh". You think of fresh as being totally unprocessed, Wols think of fresh as being minimally processed (I believe they count whole grains, legumes, and dried vegetables as fresh)
That does indeed seem like the hangup in this case, and it's on me; I should have used a less vague word or else clarify.
To me fresh is anything that hasn't been processed for preservation (except drying). So cheese isn't fresh, heat treated milk/cream isn't fresh, smoked and cooked meats aren't fresh, pickled foods aren't fresh, frozen foods aren't fresh and anything with actual preservatives added is definitely not fresh.
"raw" would probably have been the better word to use.
Also, having thought about my own understanding of the word a bit more in depth, I'll concede that some pickled veggies are pretty healthy, as well as yoghurt.
You were right with all three examples.
Opining about fruit being too sweet is always an interesting conversation to have with folks. It always take a second for their brain to catch up when you start talking about selective breeding for certain traits eventually having negative effects. That's when you pull the bait-and-switch and mention the evils of dog breeding. Poor pugs/bulldogs.
This is one of the few things this mexican government has done right. I think this was copied from Chile, and should be copied in many countries including the U.S. F*ck those greedy obese factories.
If I'm seeing this right and the Mexican labels are just either-or "excessive" labels then check out the way the UK does it – the green/orange/red colouring makes it easy to tell how horrible something is at a glance
The best part is, when you want a little treat you just look for the red labels. Or when you're trying to avoid drinks with artificial sweeteners.
Wait is that not standard anywhere else?
No, in the US every consumer is meant to be their own health expert. It doesn’t make any sense, but its the easiest way to keep feeding us unhealthy garbage for cheap
Yeah because childhood obesity and diabetes is no biggie. Gotta make sure all that corn gets sold…
considering they’re still not required to enter the “% daily value” for “total sugars” …
Isn't the daily amount like 0 you need? So Infinity % for any added amount?
This is actually an honest question, because you can easily cover your daily needs with other carbs and even those are technically not necessarily as it can be metabolized by fat in your body, but no point in bending the truth here. The body needs sugar one way or the other, but none of them are processed sugars and should probably come from rice, potatoes or bread instead.
“% daily value” is supposedly something like “percent recommended daily value” and it’s a bizarre balance between minimum to avoid deficiencies and maximum to avoid overdose as determined by a board of corporate employees with no training in medicine, diet, or nutrition
so, while there’s no minimum for “total sugars”, most who are actually trained in diet and nutrition seem to agree you really shouldn’t be going over 25–30g total sugars …
FDA does provide a daily value for “added sugars” – 100% daily value is 50g (10-ish teaspoons) which sounds a little excessive to me …
At least it sounds almost reasonable if the sugar comes from fruits. That's roughly the amount (25g sugar) you ingest when eating 2 apples.
Thank you for the interesting, but concerning answer.
Keep in mind that modern fruits have almost nothing to do with natural fruit, they have been selected for a higher sugar content and other things. Fruits themselves aren't healthy, they are more like candy, just not quite as bad.
Maybe, kinda. You have to eat them in moderation like anything. They at least provide other useful nutrients.
In my opinion fruits are slightly more beneficial than bread, pasta or potatoes which do not contain as much sugar, but more of other carbs which are in my opinion not much better.
So I see your point, but I don't think they are as bad.
But that's not true. You can eat as many veggies as you like..
They do, but you can get all those nutrients from other foods that contain far less sugar.
Actually I can't argue against that. You are obviously correct.
I just believe that fruits are not as bad as it helps with variety in your diet and they are not just empty calories.
Potatoes are very low glycemic index* and have potassium, fiber, B6, and an alright amount of protein. I will fight for potatoes.
Edit: preparation matters, just mashed potatoes are super high glycemic index, but boiled waxy potatoes with the skins on alongside a protein is at the top edge of low or medium glycemic index. I will still fight for potatoes, but they probably need to be a side dish if you are looking out for your blood sugar.
Sorry, but aren't potatoes even worse than white bread and sugar regarding the glycemic index? According to google they have scores between 80 and 90 on average while sugar (sucrose) has a score of 68.
I guess starch is really bad. I wasn't aware it has such a high impact.
Don't get me wrong they are not terrible in a balanced diet, but I don't believe they have any real benefits either. Besides they are tasty which is honestly a good reason to like foods.
Exactly right. The four foods that endocrinologists tells diabetics not to eat commonly or much of are potatoes, corn, sweet potatoes, and beets. That's on top of all the obvious items, like sugary confections, cakes, pies, etc.
I think the difference is the kind of potatoes, because they were recommended to a friend by her doctor to treat her prediabetes, but now I’ve just googled them and found what you found. Boiled waxy potatoes with the skin on are the most common home preparation here in Germany, which brings the glycemic index down to 59, according to tufts
You need the amount that maximizes profits for the producers while keeping you alive and consuming for as long as possible silly.
Or at least until you get sick enough for Big Pharma and Insurance to then have their turn with you
Translation: They are bombarded by the food industry to let this idea go, STAT! They probably don't have time for a (healthy) lunch because lobbyists are sitting on their laps from sunrise to sundown, dictating their version of the law.
they suffered in the Chilean market when the labels were introduced about 5 years ago... so it's no surprise they are going to war. in stead of ... you know, making healthier food
I saw this while in Mexico and really liked the idea. I was then immediately bummed out when realizing almost everything had that label on it and buying food without excess sugar and salt was a lot trickier.
Awareness is the first step. It will take time for people to incentivize production of clean food
It's not tricky. You're just in the wrong aisle. Get a delicious mango in Mexico.
You can't survive on mangos alone for very long.
I suppose this thread is full of clean eating herbivores and I'm the only one that enjoys a packet of chips or cheese.
I'm happy to eat junk food sometimes. And Mexico has some excellent junk food too.
Same, but man some of the snacks there are crazy strong with the lime and chili seasoning.
I'm fine with the lime and chili, but I'm not a huge fan of tamarind.
I can throw back cheese, chips, hummus, and mango. But when I do I just cut back in other areas so I don't turn into a balloon.
You can easily live without cereal though, billions of people don’t eat it. Grab some still cut oats and make oatmeal for a healthy breakfast
Yeeeeeppp. Eating cereal in the morning is a very recent invention by American megacorps. Why would you load yourself with carbs first thing in the morning? Eating proteins or not eating at all until lunchtime is better.
I love the idea, but unfortunately branding isn't a solution to perverted market forces.
Buy food that isnt processed.
Meat, fish, vegetables.
Aboid sugar and seed oils.
Fuck everything else. Live a healthy life.
Damn, that's really good. Sounds a little bit like the plain packaging laws many countries have on cigarettes, which have proven to be extremely effective in the decade since they were first rolled out. It's obviously a bit more limited, but it's still a great move.
I was about to ask... Do people actually not know these things are unhealthy?
Some people really don't. They grow up with commercials telling them that the cereal is "part of a balanced breakfast" without understanding that that means the cereal should be a small part of the breakfast.
It's also the case that not all cereals are created equally. Most of Kellogg's most famous cereals are stuffed full of sugar, but they do have some options that are relatively healthier, like their All-Bran Wheat Flakes. And from other companies, there are some actually-healthy options. Australia's most popular cereal is probably Sanitarium's Weet-Bix, with just 3 g added sugar per 100 g. And even healthier than that is my preferred breakfast cereal, Uncle Toby's Vita Brits, an otherwise-similar product with 0 g added sugar. Both Weet-Bix and Vita Brits are high in fibre and made from mostly whole grain wheat.
The poms have a version of Weet bix, too. Weet bix have to be commended for their marketing though, I still remember all the ads I'd see growing up if sports stars espousingvthe benefits of em. And they pump a lot of money into kids sport (do they still have the kids try-athlon series?) Kinda crazy given how marketing around food is these days.
Yeah the poms call theirs weetabix (not sure how it's spelt). Dunno where precisely it sits health-wise relative to Vita Brits or Weet-bix.
Honestly I've never noticed that much marketing from Weet-bix. The cereal I most associate with sport is Nutrigrain, which is a much more sugary cereal (though not as bad as ones like Cornflakes or Rice Bubbles). I recall Nutrigrain being particularly associated with Iron Man races (the weird surf lifesaving Iron Man, not the triathlon).
My packet of Sainsbury's own-brand Wheat Biscuits (same stuff, but only £3/KG), says 4.4g of sugar per 100g without milk.
As the ingredients say 95% of it is wheat, and sugar is 3 down the list from there, it's probably about 2g of added sugar too.
I'm old. There used to be a number of "how many do you do?" campaigns with cricketers, soccer players etc for Weet bix. And yeah, nutri grain has been sponsoring that tournament since the 80s. It's basically trash though, when it comes to nutrition. Rice bubbles and corn flakes are also fine enough sugar wise, both are below 10%. Not much else going for them though as they are both low in fibre.
Oh huh. Both of those are the ones I first think of when I think "sugary cereal". They're what I might buy occasionally as a treat. Are people actually buying and eating as their main cereal the ultra-sweet cereals like Crispix and Frosted Flakes? 🤢
Yes, there are many people who do not realize they are unhealthy.
Wait, wait - does that mean we're going to lose the Coca-Cola polar bear?!
[Actually, they'll probably just release the Christmas version in a collectable polar-bear-shaped bottle to get around this... ]
Coca Cola has "just" 9% of added sugar and therefor probably counts as "healthy food" in the US.
So in those places "unhealthy" starts at a whooping 37% added sugar? By these standards, Coca Cola with a mere 9% added sugar probably counts as a healthy drink...
No, it does not start at 37%. That's just the amount in fruit loops. The article even includes Coca-Cola.
Theres more sugar in orange juice, than cola. (Not much more)
Hint: fruit juice is liquid sugar too.
Orange juice was created to increase sales and use up unsellable oranges.
While true, the difference is natural sugar from the fruit vs refined sugar poured into a syrup and then mixed with carbonated water.
Coca-Cola cleanses your soul