When reading the paper it is sometimes hard to get past the headline. That was the case with a recent WSJ (6/22/05) story:

“General Mills Touts Sugary Cereal as Healthy Kids Breakfast”

There are so very many things wrong with this phrase that I had to think twice before deciding to read it as I knew that I would be compelled to write about it in this blog.

First off, let’s look at the cereals that General Mills cites as being “healthy”:

• Trix
• Cocoa Puffs
• Lucky Charms
• Cinnamon Toast Crunch
• Count Chocula

I may not be a nutritionist, but none of these cereals can really be “healthy.” But how does General Mills get away with making such a seemingly outrageous claim? Well it seems that in determining what is “healthy” they compare eating a bowl of pure sugar bombs to eating nothing.Yep, the two alternatives that it appears they provide test subjects were to either eat a bowl of artificially flavored sugar cookies with milk or going hungry (even no milk). On that basis it is not surprising that one is marginally better off eating their sugar products for breakfast. From the General Mills corporate web site:

A 1998 study showed that eating breakfast boosts children’s performance at school. Compared to children who skip breakfast, children who eat breakfast score higher on tests, are less likely to miss class or be tardy, have fewer reported discipline problems, and make fewer trips to the office.

What they didn’t test was whether you’d get the same benefit by eating the cardboard cereal box with milk. In fact, a study from Ann Arbor University in 1960 testing exactly this has over the years gained cult status:

Another unpublished experiment was carried out in 1960. Researchers at Ann Arbor University were given 18 laboratory rats. They were divided into three groups: one group received corn flakes and water; a second group was given the cardboard box that the Cornflakes came in and water; the control group received rat chow and water. The rats in the control group remained in good health throughout the experiment. The rats eating the box became lethargic and eventually died of malnutrition. The rats receiving the Cornflakes and water died before the rats that were eating the box! But before death, the Cornflakes rats developed schizophrenic behavior, threw fits, bit each other and finally went into convulsions. Autopsy revealed dysfunction of the pancreas, liver and kidneys and degeneration of the nerves of the spine, all signs of insulin shock. The startling conclusion of this study is that there was more nourishment in the box than there was in the Cornflakes.

I don’t have access to the data used in the General Mills test but I’d assume that kids who are from families that don’t even serve breakfast are not the kind of families that are helping them with their homework, going to parent-teacher conferences, and other activities that affect the metrics tested by General Mills. If mom/dad  can’t even figure out how to get their kids to eat the first and most important meal of the day then what is the likelihood that that they give a rat’s ass whether their children get to school on time or spend time in detention?

One would think that a company the size of General Mills would fear the public reaction to such a flawed study. But maybe not. If you look at the other marketers of sugar-based food stuffs, you see the same exhibition of denial and obfuscation.

Kellog Co. believes it markets responsibly and sees no need to change. Well, this is what one gets in a serving of Tony’s Cinnamon Krunchers(tm):

Rice, sugar, palm oil, fructose, dextrose, salt, cinnamon, high fructose corn syrup, malt flavoring, spice, artificial flavor, ascorbic acid (vitamin C), niacinamide, reduced iron, BHT (preservative), pyridoxine hydrochloride (vitamin B6), riboflavin (vitamin B2), thiamin hydrochloride (vitamin B1), vitamin A palmitate, folic acid, vitamin B12, vitamin D.

Interstate Bakeries states that they have refocused kid favorite Hostess Twinkies on the adult market. You show me an adult who eats Twinkies, and I’ll show you an adult with a weight problem. Nationally, Twinkie eating appears to be quite a problem:

Twinkies contain 150 calories (I’m going to ignore the deep fried version which weigh in at 270 calories). According to Interstate Bakeries, 500 million Twinkies are eaten by Americans every year.

If you use the the standard metric of 3,500 calories per pound, then Twinkies add over 21 million pounds per year to American’s waists!

The moral of this story is that we really can’t blame Tony the Tiger or the Lucky Charm’s Leprechaun for people being so gullible. If I told you that cigarettes were healthy because it has been proven that smoking a cigarette is better for you than shooting a nail gun into your left temple, would you run out and buy your family a pack of cigarettes? That said, I have to admit that I feel bad for the kids of parents that are so out of it that they look at a box of Cocoa Sugar Puffs and think to themselves “well that study says that they are good for you so eat up junior.”

Technorati: nutrition

This entry was posted on Monday, July 18th, 2005 at 7:56 am by Insider and is filed under Funny ... to us, How Not To Succeed In Business. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.