With fanfare and self-congratulation exclusively reserved for government and industry types, Kellogg's just announced a change in their marketing policy, in which they'll stop advertising many of their products to kids under 12. According to ABCNews.com:
"Snap, crackle and pop.
That sound could herald the end of advertisements touting unhealthy cereals and snacks to kids.
Kellogg Co., the world's leading maker of cereals with close to $11 billion in 2006 sales, unveiled new standards Thursday for marketing its products to children under 12.
Additionally, Kellogg will place new labels on the fronts of cereal boxes that highlight some of the nutrition information from the side panel."
This is the kind of story that sets my hair ablaze (easy now, not much left). The Kellogg's Company was actually born out of a healthy living program over a hundred years ago, run by the Kellogg Brothers at the Battle Creek Sanitarium, in Michigan. Starting with Kellogg's Toasted Corn Flakes, the company grew to become a staple in the American pantry, with 2006 revenues exceeding ten billion dollars. It's an authentically modern American success story, especially since their success came at the expense of the health of our children. Now, under the threat of lawsuits pointing to the company for being a direct cause of childhood obesity, they are "voluntarily" changing their ways. Of course, the corporate-owned media in America is taking to the news like kids to a fresh bowl of Frosted Flakes. It's Grrreat!
This is excerpted from a 6/17/07 opinion piece in The New York Post, by Elizabeth M. Whelan:
"In contrast to the mea culpas made this week by Kellogg's - and their new anti-corporate friends - these are the facts:
First, today's fortified cereals are sources of excellent nutrition for kids and adults. My late colleague Dr. Fredrick J. Stare, founder of the Harvard Department of Nutrition and co-founder of the group I run, the American Council on Science and Health, was the first to suggest, more than 50 years ago, that cereal manufacturers fortify their products with beneficial nutrients - scrawling the idea that became Special K on the back of a napkin to explain it to a Kellogg's executive.
Second, pre-sweetened cereals do provide calories, but for non-obese kids, calories can be a good thing: They provide energy. And if the cereal is not pre-sweetened, the child may just do the sweetening with scoops from the sugar bowl - often adding even more sugar than there would have been in a pre-sweetened product. "
She goes on, but I was about to choke on my Coco Pops.
Well, it's a good thing that we have friends at the Now Age Press like Mary Enig and Sally Fallon. Authors of the groundbreaking book, Nourishing Traditions, Ms. Enig and Fallon wrote a piece a few years back titled, The Oiling of America. In the piece, they uncovered the facts, characters, and corporate-sponsored "science" that took us from butter to margarine, and other vegetable oils. They also pull the mask off the aforementioned Dr. Stare, and his Harvard front. From the article:
"Dr. Frederick Stare, head of Harvard University's Nutrition Department, encouraged the consumption of corn oil—up to one cup a day—in his syndicated column. In a promotional piece specifically for Procter and Gamble's Puritan oil, he cited two experiments and one clinical trial as showing that high blood cholesterol is associated with CHD. However, both experiments had nothing to do with Coronary Heart Disease (CHD), and the clinical trial did not find that reducing blood cholesterol had any effect on CHD events. Later, Dr. William Castelli, Director of the Framingham Study was one of several specialists to endorse Puritan. Dr. Antonio Gotto, Jr., former AHA president, sent a letter promoting Puritan Oil to practicing physicians—printed on Baylor College of Medicine, The De Bakey Heart Center letterhead. The irony of Gotto's letter is that De Bakey, the famous heart surgeon, coauthored a 1964 study involving 1700 patients which also showed no definite correlation between serum cholesterol levels and the nature and extent of coronary artery disease. In other words, those with low cholesterol levels were just as likely to have blocked arteries as those with high cholesterol levels. But while studies like De Bakey's moldered in the basements of university libraries, the vegetable oil campaign took on increased bravado and audacity."
Is it possible that research science in the US can be purchased? Come now. Who would think such a thing? It's Harvard, for heaven's sake. Pure as baby's bottom; soft as their little heads, no? NO!!!
Now, let's see how the story was covered in Australia, by the Brisbane Times. In a 6/16/07 piece by Ben Cubby, he writes:
"The breakfast cereal giant Kellogg's will no longer advertise its most unhealthy products to young children as part of a worldwide shift in its marketing strategy, but some parents and health groups say the shift is cosmetic.
The move is seen as being driven by pressure to ban junk food promotions to children.
Cereals such as Coco Pops, criticised for their low nutritional value and high-sugar content, would still qualify to be promoted during children's programs on television."
A hair more fair and balanced perspective, wouldn't you say?
Here's my take on all this. There's not much Kellogg's, or any cold breakfast cereal manufacturer can do to make their products qualify as food in my world, let alone a breakfast for growing kids. Here's why.
First, I don't care how much vitamin this, mineral that, that gets added to a bowl of flakes. The question is, what's getting absorbed in the child's tummy? Probably not very much, as many of the nutrients being added to the cereals are not necessarily found in those foods in their whole state. Hence, the body does not easily recognize the element hanging out there on its own, if you will, even if it's bound to a Frosted Flake. Next, cold milk mixed with dry cereal makes for a complicated digestive mix, from an Energetic viewpoint. That's because the stomach needs a certain degree of warmth to create an environment suitable for proper digestion. The fact that the milk is most likely pasteurized (no active enzymes), on top of being cold, it's a sure bet all that's being created is a gut full of mucus. For my growing child, a sensible breakfast is generally centered around something called, a cooked egg.
For Kellogg's to make real amends for their crimes, they would need to shut down their crap factories, foster the development of sustainable farms throughout America (notice I didn't say "organic", talk about co-opted), where they would grow REAL FOOD, and sponsor children from every school in the country to reconnect with an essential human element: an understanding of what food actually is, and where it really comes from. From there, the kids can work up a plan to feed the hungry with the spoils of their labor.
WAIT! Stop the press! Am I really suggesting that my darling daughter get her hands dirty on a farm???? Take my tongue, Lord. She's going to be a "professional". Leave the farm work to the criminal invaders from south of the border. Isn't that why they risk their lives to get here. Oh yeah, and to clean my toilet. Whew, I'm glad I came to my senses.
God, please bless America.
- Craig Gordon
I'm gonna make it up for all of the Sunday Times
I'm gonna make it up for all of the nursery rhymes
They never really seem to want to tell the truth
I'm so tired of you America
- Rufus Wainwright
