From Jenny Thompson and the Health Science Institute Newsletter June 22, 2007

Dear Reader,

Remember in the very first Star Wars when Obi Wan Kenobi used his Jedi mind trick? He waved his hand and told a storm trooper, "These are not the droids you're looking for." To which the trooper replied, "These are not the droids we're looking for." And of course, the droids in question were exactly the droids they were looking for.

I think someone at Kellogg Cereal Company might be a Jedi master.

Kellogg recently avoided a lawsuit by agreeing to adjust the nutritional standards of its cereals as well as its policies for advertising to kids. In an Associated Press article, Kellogg CEO, David Mackay, offered this take on the change: "We feel the Kellogg Nutrient Criteria set a new standard for responsibility in the industry." (The article didn't mention if he actually waved his hand when he said this.)

Another quote in the article comes from Michael F. Jacobson, executive director of the Center for Science in the Public Interest (one of the parties that brought the lawsuit): "By committing to these nutrition standards and marketing reforms, Kellogg has vaulted over the rest of the food industry."

Vaulted over the rest of the food industry? He didn't add, "These are not the droids we're looking for," but he might as well have.

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The new zero
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To avoid a lawsuit, Kellogg executives came up with a simple plan: They'll reformulate their products according to this new set of nutritional guidelines for each individual serving of each product:

* Maximum of 200 calories
* Zero trans fatty acids
* Maximum of 2 grams of saturated fats
* Maximum of 230 mg of sodium
* Maximum of 12 grams of sugar

Now...stand aside and make way for a festival of caveats.

Eggo frozen waffles will be exempt from the sodium requirement. Why? Who knows? Maybe the powerful executives in Kellogg's Eggo Division just won't budge on the sodium issue.

Any Sugar that comes from fruit, vegetables, or dairy will not be factored into the Sugar calculation.

Zero trans fatty acids? Riiiight. Except when the FDA is doing the math. As I've noted in previous e-Alerts, the FDA allows food manufacturers to claim zero trans fats if a product contains less than 0.5 grams of trans fats per serving. Zero point four - it's the new zero!

And here's my favorite caveat: If Kellogg nutritionists are unable to reformulate a product to meet these new guidelines, then the company won't market the unchanged product to kids who are under the age of 12. And there's a caveat to this caveat: If more than half of any Web, TV, radio, or print audience is made up of kids over the age of 12, then it's okay to market to that audience, even if a substantial percentage of the audience is under 12.

Wow. That's some impressive vaulting all right.

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Knee slappers
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For some real humor, lets take a quick look at two of the "nutrition" guidelines Kellogg has laid down, along with one glaring omission.

We'll start with 12 grams of sugar. That's about three teaspoons of sugar. And Kellogg wants us to believe that's a "healthy" portion for kids under the age of 12. Currently, a single 3/4-cup serving of Kellogg's Frosted Flakes contains almost 12 grams. And if you've ever seen a kid pour his own cereal, you know that 3/4 of a cup is a serving size invented by an adult who doesn't have a clue.

The 2-gram limit for saturated fats is mostly irrelevant for cereals, which already contain very small amounts. But of course, in mainstream thinking, saturated fat is the boogieman. And when you're talking Kellogg, you're talking seriously mainstream processed foods.

And carbs? Hellooo? The new guidelines completely ignore refined carbohydrates - arguably the most harmful nutrition factor when it comes to promoting childhood obesity. And does Kellogg deliver refined carbs? DO they! Care to guess the carb content in a single strawberry Pop-Tart? Thirty-seven grams. And that comes packed with 16 grams of sugar. And that's a Pop-Tart with no frosting!

So here's how it's going to go... Kellogg will shrink serving sizes to postage stamp sized portions to qualify for the per-serving nutrition requirements (would you like a quarter of a Pop-Tart?), or they'll just throw in the towel with products that don't conform to the new guidelines and market them to kids who are 12 and older - along with all those kids under the age of 12 who watch TV with their older siblings.

Even Obi Wan's mind trick couldn't wave away the absurdity of this "new standard of responsibility."