Smart Choice? Big Food thinks so.
As you may already be aware, there’s a new food-labeling campaign underway courtesy of the US’s biggest processed-food manufacturers. Called “Smart Choices” and managed by the American Society of Nutrition, the program allows food companies to place a big green check mark on products it deems “Smart Choices,” or foods that are “better” than potential alternatives. For example, Froot Loops, which is 41 percent sugar by weight, wins a “Smart Choices” label because it is “better” than, say, a doughnut.
Needless to say, nutrition advocates have taken major exception to the program, which they say enables big food purveyors like Kellogg’s to pass their junk food off as healthy. Tom Laksawy at Grist, for example, calls it “weaselly business as usual”; nutrition guru Marion Nestle calls it a “clear conflict of interest,” because the companies that decide what products get the “Smart Choices” label stand to benefit financially from the label; and Michael Jacobsen, director of the Center for Science in the Public Interest, said of the label, “You could start out with some sawdust, add calcium or Vitamin A and meet the criteria.”
If you don’t think processed, sugar-laden cereals are a healthy choice, sign the petition opposing the labeling system at Change.org.
