Friday the NYT posted this story about the Smart Choices label that is starting to appear on products in grocery stores. This is a huge scam by the processed food conglomerates, and a perfect example of why libertarians have their heads up their asses.
(I didn't see a Sunday AM WHEE diary so I am going ahead and making this one, since I didn't see this topic covered in any diary yet.)
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I encourage you to read the article but the basic idea is the food processing conglomerates including Kellogg’s, Kraft Foods, ConAgra Foods, Unilever, General Mills, PepsiCo and Tyson Foods got together and decided to standardize the bullshit labels they were putting on the front of their crap that told consumers "Hey this is 'good'* for you!" and on the back of the box said "* - Better than a bucket of hydrochloric acid."
The panel that decided what products "earned" the label included a Dr. Celeste A. Clark who is senior vice president of global nutrition for Kellogg’s, but she insisted that the industry had no influence on what products got the label. Yeah, pull the other one.
Products that qualified included Froot Loops and Fudgscicles. Yes those certainly are "smart choices" alright. As long as your goal is developing type 2 diabetes ASAP.
The only plus side to this article is that Michael R. Taylor at the FDA told the NYT that the agency will consider standardized front-of-box labels. That would be awesome if this gambit of pure bullshit by the industry resulted in an actually informational label being forced on those greedy, lying assholes.
Please make sure that the people who do the shopping in your household, and your friends' households are aware that this green checkmark is a complete and utter lie.
(h/t to Dan Savage at Slog where I saw this originally.)
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