When our kids were little, Coco Pops were the bane of my life. Any weekend getaway in a hotel or at a friend’s house featured these crispy vacuum globules that were forbidden at home. Our kids spent the morning on a sugar rush and cried at lunchtime.
So I couldn’t suppress a wry laugh at the announcement from Kellogg, the cereal group, that it’s sue the UK government for not considering the benefits of milk in the new restrictions on fatty, sugary foods. The problem isn’t the milk, guys: it’s milk products, which make up a third of all cereals consumed in Britain.
This legal challenge is the clearest indication yet that Big Food is on the run. Kellogg knows the new rules will downgrade profitable parts of its supermarket promotions range and premium shelf space, where our eyes are fixed on junk and we can’t look away.
For many years, the food and beverage industry has argued that it’s okay to gorge on sweets, as long as they’re part of a “balanced diet.” The problem is that we humans are not good at resisting temptation. Surveys show that people want to eat healthier. But this collides with reality of what we actually consume. The Covid pandemic has made us more aware of the dangers of obesity. But American people Y British they are actually more overweight than before, as stress and a sedentary lifestyle take their toll.
I myself am not a saint. For years as a journalist, I was unable to meet a deadline without a Coke and a Yorkie bar, after sitting next to a colleague who kept them. I was saved by my high metabolism and interviewing scientists who convinced me that fat and sugar fire up our brains the same way nicotine does. One researcher swore that he would never look at a cheesecake again after it was fed to him. rats in a laboratory. So irresistible was the hit of dopamine that the rats ended up diving right into the cheesecake to gorge themselves. Eventually, some preferred to starve to death rather than eat anything else, an effect he likened to heroin.
You can argue that we’re not lab rats: we’re not force-fed, and we can read articles about the importance of “five a day.” But the dust-faced brochures can’t compete with the marketing geniuses who have managed to convince us that ultra-processed things with virtually no nutritional value are actually food. And that they have persuaded struggling families to spend money on it.
How did we get to the point where staples like bread and cereal are a minefield? Biochemist Terence Kealey once called breakfast in the English-speaking world a “mass insulinization weapon”, referring to the way that high-sugar breakfasts raise blood glucose levels. And some American children go entire days without drinking water, according to researchers at Pennsylvania State University, drinking soda instead, even though the water is free.
When Michael Bloomberg tried to ban super-sized soft drinks in New York, he was defeated in court by the industry, which argued that the ban was an unconstitutional violation of liberty. When he was part of the UK government that imposed the soft drink industry rate in 2016the most vociferous attacks came from Coca-Cola, which threatened to take us to court, but eventually backed down.
Governments wary of telling people what to buy are finally realizing that poor nutrition poses a direct threat to their health budgets. The NHS spends more than £6bn a year treating obesity-related health problems, and the cost will rise to almost £10 billion by 2050. The Boris Johnson government’s anti-obesity strategy is the product of the prime minister’s own epiphany after his near-death experience from covid, and the realization that “leveling off” will be an empty slogan unless we address the enormous health inequalities between rich and poor.
The pressure is also coming from investors, who may begin to see junk food companies as potentially risky stranded assets. Until recently, the field had been left in the hands of a few activist investors such as dan loeb, who mischievously faked Campbell’s Soup with his own refrain of “Mmm, mmm, bad.” But now, main investors are waking up BMO and Legal & General are among investors who have written to the boards of Kellogg, Danone, Nestlé and Kraft Heinz requesting greater disclosure of nutrition and health information. All these companies will have to become more transparent.
“Healthier” ranges from brands like Kettle chips and Walkers crisps will be launched in the coming months, just as we saw the reformulation of drinks after the soft drink tax. It’s true that companies like Kellogg have only offered what consumers wanted: flavors we love. But some laws privately welcome all of us, buyers and sellers, out of the junk food cycle.
There will inevitably be disputes, including legitimate questions about how to judge nutritional value and whether the playing field is really level. According The shopkeeperKellogg has questioned why cereals are within the scope of government regulations while chocolate spreads are exempt. The company says it has eliminated 11,000 tons of sugar since 2011, 60% of the salt since the 1990s, and that none of its children’s cereals will be high in fat, salt, or sugar by 2023. But the truth is, great and lasting changes will take place. they only occur through regulation.
For our own preservation, I hope the courts give Kellogg a Frostie reception. We’ve been the lab rats for far too long.
