Will the Smart Choices Label
Help You Eat Healthy?
The Smart Choices label will now be seen on a variety of foods at the grocery story.
UPDATE OCTOBER 23, 2009: The Smart Choices Program announced that it will voluntarily postpone active operations and not encourage wider use of the logo at this time by either new or currently enrolled companies.
Perhaps they were confused too?
But you will continue to see foods with the Smart Choices label.
This new symbol with the check mark is supposed to guide the consumer quickly to healthy food for the whole family. Sounds like a great idea, right?
Unless you stop and read the labels.
We shouldn’t have to work this hard.
Froot Loops as the New Superfood?
When you look beyond the Smart Choices check mark on the label, you will discover the criteria required to get the check mark may not help you purchase healthy food. If you want the details of the criteria, go to the
Smart Choices Program website.
Products were rated on a per serving scale, which is why many unhealthy products can get the Smart Choices check mark. For example, Froot Loops has 12 grams of sugar per serving, which meets the Smart Choices program requirement for cereal. Unfortunately, one serving of Froot Loops is actually 41% sugar by weight. Not exactly the breakfast of champions.
Sugar is the first item on the Froot Loops list of ingredients. And yes, the product is spelled “Froot Loops”. So when we are dousing our kids with sugar, we’ll make sure they misspell “fruit” on their next spelling test.
The Healthier Than a Donut Label?
When I discussed the Smart Choices Label program with my oldest daughter, she said, “Mom, they should just call it the “Healthier Than a Donut” program, and put a donut with a checkmark on all the labels."
At least my kid gets it.
To be included in the Smart Choices program, each manufacturer pays up to $100,000, with a fee based on the amount of products sales of Smart Choices products. Let’s see, the providers of high sugar cereal pay to have their products included in the Smart Choices Program?
What if somebody missed and put a checkmark on laundry soap? Or motor oil? Dinner time at my house could get even more interesting.
It would save a lot of time and money if my local grocery store would just go for the obvious, and put a check mark on all the vegetables.
By the way, mayonnaise also gets a Smart Choices checkmark. Maybe if they put flax and whole grain in it, I might feel better about it?
For more details, and good commentary, check out this
article in the NY Times.
My favorite comment from the article: "You could start out with some sawdust, add calcium or Vitamin A and meet the criteria."
My husband might argue that we had that entree for dinner last week.
Return from Smart Choices Label to Home
|
