It’s no surprise that some food labels are misleading or contain empty health claims. KIND recognizes all this fluff and our way to be transparent and fight the marketing gimmicks is by just truly using simple ingredients you can see and pronounce. A recent report examines food labeling and calls for changes in labeling policies, but with KIND, what you see is what you get.
A recent study by the journal Health Affairs highlights the substantial increase in children’s snacking habits and analyzes the unhealthy snack foods that they tend to consume. That’s why the right kind of snacking – healthy snacking – is so important.
Manipulation of serving sizes is a serious problem. At the end of the day consumers need to use common sense and look for nutritionally rich foods and not hide in ‘100 calorie’ claims of products with empty calories - ie chips, soda, etc. But it would help society if reasonable standards were enforced so that unscrupulous food companies wouldn’t post silly claims about calorie count or sodium content in the front of the labels, that only a careful observer would realize assumes consumption of a fraction of the product.
This article describes the FDA’s efforts to zero in on the problem. But it doesn’t mention what most of the world - except the US - does. They require every product to list nutritional impact per 100 grams. I used to think that is confusing because you don’t necessarily consume 100 grams of that product. But it creates a benchmark that is easy to compare. And it doesn’t have to exclude an additional column for nutritional facts per portion.
Under Indra Nooyi’s leadership, Pepsi keeps showing a commitment to move towards social responsibility.
They just recently launched this campaign to reward new ideas and charities.
And they now unveiled a 100% compostable packaging for SunChips.
Samples of KIND Fruit & Nut and KIND Cranberry Almond bars will be provided at participating Starbucks stores nationwide on Friday, February 5th.
Offer applies to sample size products only. Limited time offer. While supplies last.
Here is a really nice rating from Calorista.com. They totally get KIND.
Ken Kunze, former CMO of Heineken and a very impressive guy, shared this very funny and effective guerrilla marketing effort by Coca-Cola.
Useful NYTimes article about how to travel more cheaply in 2010 – good tips to know.
The Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) has sent a report to the FDA charging several food and beverage manufacturers with mislabeling their products. CSPI also recommends reforming package labeling format, especially the nutrition information and ingredient lists.
Yesterday I tried Softsoap’s Pure Cashmere Hand soap. I was struck by the proposition that a soap could contain "cashmere extract" because a while back I had wondered what "cashmere" really was. Most consumers just know Cashmere sweaters as exceptionally soft but don’t know where "cashmere" comes from, so I guess the marketing team at Softsoap’s parent company, Colgate, figured that they would make things romantic with the cashmere association.
The trouble is, cashmere is the fur of a type of goat - the cashmere goat. Colgate tries to connect to this silly gimmick by using "hydrolyzed keratin" - a protein extract from the goat’s hair. This ingredient, besides being the least present in the formula (see label), has no discernible impact on the purported features of the product. It is just used for smoke and mirrors. Too bad that most consumers have not yet caught up with this deception - though I did find one colorful site that brought them to task on it.
![clip_image001[6]](http://blog.peaceworks.net/wp-content/uploads/ColgatesGoatSoap_5E5/clip_image0016.jpg)
You’d think Colgate would be a bit more responsible with its claims and advertising.
Then again, liquid soap is a modern invention that pollutes water at such greater levels than regular soap, for the sheer fact that it is used in much ampler and less efficient form than regular bars of soap. The same reason why companies created shower gels and liquid soaps - because they can command a higher price and accomplish more turns than using regular soap bars - is also the reason why consumers should avoid using such products, which harm the environment and are just wasteful.
