Consumer Law

Froot Loops a Smart Choice?

By Jeff Sovern

by Jeff Sovern

Friday's Times brought For Your Health, Froot Loops about an industry-backed labeling campaign called "Smart Choices" that's ?designed to help shoppers easily identify smarter food and beverage choices.? Designed to sell food might be closer to the truth, as the list of approved foods includes Cocoa Krispies and Froot Loops.  An excerpt: 

Froot Loops qualifies for the label because it meets standards set by the Smart Choices Program for fiber and Vitamins A and C, and because it does not exceed limits on fat, sodium and sugar. It contains the maximum amount of sugar allowed under the program for cereals, 12 grams per serving, which in the case of Froot Loops is 41 percent of the product, measured by weight. That is more sugar than in many popular brands of cookies.

?Froot Loops is an excellent source of many essential vitamins and minerals and it is also a good source of fiber with only 12 grams of sugar,? said Celeste A. Clark, senior vice president of global nutrition for Kellogg?s, which makes Froot Loops. ?You cannot judge the nutritional merits of a food product based on one ingredient.?

On that theory, manufacturers should be able to stuff foods with fiber, vitamins, and cyanide and call it a smart choice. 

We allow some seller's puff in our system, but this sounds like it's on the deceptive side of the line.  To make matters worse, the article explains that manufacturers pay the program for the right to have their products labeled as Smart Choices, with the fee determined by the number of labeled products sold.  So just as the bond-rating agencies had an incentive to water down their standards for mortgage-backed securities so they could increase their revenue, this program has an incentive to have loose standards so more foods can be identified as Smart Choices, thereby increasing sales of foods so labeled, and the program can generate more revenue.

Full post as published by CL&P Blog on September 07, 2009 (boomark / email).