“Let them eat promises.”
The man who said that just died.
It was the title of his book, intended to bring issues of malnutrition and fake nutrition to public scrutiny, eons before such issues were popular.
His name was R. B. Choate. He was born into a family of bluebloods, heavy on senators and ambassadors, and to some extent he continued the family tradition of public service. Except forty years ago, not even Marxism was as bizarre and revolutionary a topic of discussion as nutrition and the multi-national companies who purvey it.
In 1970, he went before a Senate subcommittee and took on “Snap Crackle and Pop” and “The Breakfast of Champions.” He said these products hardly deserved the name “food.”
He proclaimed to a nation subsisting on a vast mass-produced avalanche of empty calories that most breakfast cereals had no more nutritional content than candy bars and gin. And came laced with lethal megatons of sugar.
The Cereal Killers struck back. “He forgot to factor in the milk,” they harrumphed. “You need sugar to entice children to eat,” they pleaded.
“The taste for sugar is acquired,” Mr. Choate replied.
What he didn’t quite say, but would have probably agreed with, was that if sugar wasn’t a billion dollar business, it would be on the government’s list of controlled substances.
But I digress. This is a column about meaning and marketing, not meanies and supermarkets.
Mr. Choate went on to serve at the presidential level on commissions addressing nutrition, food and hunger, and he founded the Council on Children, Media and Merchandising.
He attacked advertising targeted at children. He called it a tug of war between 200-pound men and 60-pound youngsters.
It is one of life’s ironies that this man who devoted his life to sanity in nutrition died from a medical condition that prevented him from swallowing.
Silly rabbit. Trix are for kids.
The man who said that just died.
It was the title of his book, intended to bring issues of malnutrition and fake nutrition to public scrutiny, eons before such issues were popular.
His name was R. B. Choate. He was born into a family of bluebloods, heavy on senators and ambassadors, and to some extent he continued the family tradition of public service. Except forty years ago, not even Marxism was as bizarre and revolutionary a topic of discussion as nutrition and the multi-national companies who purvey it.
In 1970, he went before a Senate subcommittee and took on “Snap Crackle and Pop” and “The Breakfast of Champions.” He said these products hardly deserved the name “food.”
He proclaimed to a nation subsisting on a vast mass-produced avalanche of empty calories that most breakfast cereals had no more nutritional content than candy bars and gin. And came laced with lethal megatons of sugar.
The Cereal Killers struck back. “He forgot to factor in the milk,” they harrumphed. “You need sugar to entice children to eat,” they pleaded.
“The taste for sugar is acquired,” Mr. Choate replied.
What he didn’t quite say, but would have probably agreed with, was that if sugar wasn’t a billion dollar business, it would be on the government’s list of controlled substances.
But I digress. This is a column about meaning and marketing, not meanies and supermarkets.
Mr. Choate went on to serve at the presidential level on commissions addressing nutrition, food and hunger, and he founded the Council on Children, Media and Merchandising.
He attacked advertising targeted at children. He called it a tug of war between 200-pound men and 60-pound youngsters.
It is one of life’s ironies that this man who devoted his life to sanity in nutrition died from a medical condition that prevented him from swallowing.
Silly rabbit. Trix are for kids.
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