Marketing Junk Food as Health Food

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http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/07/24/FDVK18ITKJ.DTL

'Better' junk food about marketing, not health

n Nestle

Friday, July 24, 2009

The Smart Choices logo is coming soon to grocery store sh...

Nutrition and public policy expert n Nestle answers readers'

questions in this column written exclusively for The Chronicle. E-

mail your questions to food@..., with " n Nestle " in

the subject line.

Q: Every junk food I pick up looks as if it has a sticker telling me

how healthy it is. How do they get away with this?

A: Wait! It's about to get weirder. Soon arriving at a supermarket

near you are food packages labeled with Smart Choices logos. These

are supposed to guide you to " smarter " food selections.

The program has a philosophical basis: A junk food with a little less

sugar, salt, saturated fat or other nutritional evils will be better

for you than other junk foods.

I know. Nutritionists are not supposed to call them " junk foods. " We

are supposed to call them " foods of minimal nutritional value. "

Whatever we call them, we don't usually recommend them. We advise

choosing minimally processed foods with no unnecessary additives.

I also care about how foods are produced and used, so I recommend

what the Oakland-based Prevention Institute advises: Choose foods

that have been produced safely, fairly, sustainably and humanely, and

that are available, accessible and affordable to everyone.

For years now, PepsiCo has put green Smart Spot labels on its " better-

for-you " foods and drinks. Kraft has used its equally green Sensible

Solutions labels to identify " better-choice " options of Lunchables

and macaroni and cheese. You might not be able to tell one Lunchable

from another, but Kraft can. Like other companies, it sets up its own

nutritional standards. Unsurprisingly, hundreds of its products

qualify for its self-determined nutritional criteria.

Where is the Food and Drug Administration in all this? Busy elsewhere.

You might wonder what happens if independent experts establish the

criteria. This experiment was performed by Hannaford, a supermarket

chain in the Northeast. It developed a Guiding Stars program that

awards one, two or three stars to qualifying foods. It applied

independently determined standards to 27,000 products in its stores.

Oops. Only 23 percent qualified for even one star. Worse, 80 percent

of that 23 percent were fresh fruits and vegetables in the produce

section. By independent nutritional standards, everything else is a

junk food.

Wooing experts

The best way to sell junk foods is to make them appear healthier. The

best way to do that is to entice nutrition experts to create easier

standards. Enter Smart Choices.

This program is the result of years of food industry consultation

with nutrition professionals. It replaces the individual programs of

participating companies so you have a " single, trusted and easily

recognizable dietary symbol " to help you make " smarter choices within

product categories, " based on " consensus science. " Sounds good, no?

But is a " better-for-you " junk food really a good choice? Of course

not. Smart Choices is about marketing, not health.

Its " consensus science " nutritional criteria allow rather generous

amounts of sugars and salt so many processed foods can qualify. They

reduce the value of food to a few nutrients. The standards do not

deal with how foods are produced, how processed they are or how they

are used in daily diets.

One underlying purpose of this united program is surely to stave off

federal regulations requiring a traffic-light rating system such as

that used in England and Australia. Consumers prefer this system to

those that use check marks and understand that they can freely choose

green-lighted foods but should avoid the red-lighted foods. No wonder

food companies don't like it.

Another reason to pre-empt the FDA's proposal to require disclosure

of the full number of calories in a package on its front label. Smart

Choices lists calories per serving and the number of servings, just

as the confusing Nutrition Facts label does now.

The marketing benefits are obvious. Only the health benefits are

debatable.

I would dismiss the Smart Choices program (smartchoicesprogram.com)

as just another food industry marketing ploy except for the

involvement of health professionals in its development. Collaborators

include organizations such as the American Dietetic Association and

the American Heart Association. To my dismay, they also include the

American Society of Nutrition, an organization of nutrition

scientists to which I belong. Indeed, the ASN manages the " scientific

integrity " of the project. In effect, the ASN is endorsing products

that bear the Smart Choices logo.

Conflict of interest

The ASN is not alone in its financial partnerships with food

companies. The American Heart Association endorses sugary breakfast

cereals, and the American Dietetic Association allows food companies

to sponsor its nutrition information sheets. But the goals of health

organizations and of businesses are not the same.

The partnerships put nutrition professionals in a serious conflict of

interest. How can they advise the public about food choices when they

are paid to endorse products that many nutritionists would agree are

nutritionally inferior? How can they argue that eating a marginally

better food product will produce a real health benefit, when so many

lifestyle choices are involved?

This is on my mind because I recently received a letter from the ASN

nominating me to join the board of directors of the Smart Choices

program. I replied that I appreciated the nomination, but think the

program ill-advised.

My letter appeared in the society's newsletter along with a response

from its executive director: " Rather than seeing this as a conflict

of interest, we see ASN as having a responsibility to help consumers

make better food choices. ASN is rooted in science and believes that

information provided to consumers should be science based. ...

Unfortunately, there is not a sufficient research base to suggest

that any dietary guidance program ... will be effective in improving

the health of the population. "

My point precisely. If health benefits are uncertain, it makes no

sense to endorse food products simply because they meet arbitrary

nutritional criteria.

What is at stake here is the integrity of nutrition advice. People

constantly ask me whose nutrition advice can be trusted. I am tempted

to say, " Mine, of course, " but I understand the dilemma. If the most

prestigious nutrition and health organizations have financial ties to

food companies, how can you trust them to tell you what foods are

best to eat?

Smart Choices is coming. Watch for the logos and decide for yourself

whether they are useful.

n Nestle is the author of " Food Politics, " " Safe Food " and " What

to Eat, " and is a professor in the Department of Nutrition, Food

Studies and Public Health at New York University. E-mail her at

food@... and read her previous columns at sfgate.com/food.

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/07/24/FDVK18ITKJ.DTL

This article appeared on page K - 3 of the San Francisco Chronicle

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