Like many other food companies these days, PepsiCo is trying to figure out how to appeal to consumers who have shifted toward healthier products. But while Pepsi is touting higher global sales, with 45% of the company’s revenue coming from “guilt-free” products — what exactly does that term mean? [More]
healthy
Pinnacle Foods Takes A Trip Down The Healthy Aisle, Pays $710M For Boulder Brands
By 11.24.15
If you’re a major player in the food industry, the cool thing to do these days is buy up brands with a natural and/or organic bent to them to show consumers how healthy and hip you are. Pinnacle Foods is no different, taking a trip down the organic aisle to scoop up natural packaged foods maker Boulder Brands for $710 million. [More]
McDonald’s Reportedly Adding Kale To The Menu After Bashing The Vegetable Earlier This Year
By 3.10.15
McDonald’s latest attempt to transform itself into a “modern, progressive burger company” that can attract a younger consumer base apparently includes adding everyone’s (okay, maybe not everyone) favorite superfood to the menu: kale. [More]
Ben & Jerry's Dropping "All Natural" From Labels
By 9.28.10
After the Center for Science in the Public Interest complained last month that “all natural” doesn’t include things like alkalized cocoa and hydrogenated oil, Ben & Jerry’s announced yesterday that it will stop using the phrase on its ice cream cartons. [More]
190 Tons Of Walmart Deli Meat Recalled Over Potential Listeria Contamination
By 8.24.10
A New York company called Zemco Industries has recalled 380,000 pounds of deli meat that it distributed to Walmart under the Marketside label, because it might be contaminated with Listeria monocytogenes. Although nobody has reported any illness and healthy people aren’t usually in danger, listeriosis can kill old people, infants, and others with weak immune systems. [More]
Foods That Are Bad For You: Now Good For You!
By 9.10.09
The Times has a write-up of the Smart Choices campaign, an industry-supported healthy foods labeling program that generously designates foods like Fruit Roll-Ups, mayonnaise, and Cocoa Puffs as good for you. “These are horrible choices,” says the head of the nutrition department at Harvard School of Public Health.
Make Your Own Sports Drink
By 8.9.09
Why waste money on Gatorade when you can brew an equally effective sports drink from sugar, lemon juice, salt and orange juice? Hit the jump for the simple, inexpensive recipe.
Subway Worker Wonders Why You Would Eat Their "Disgusting" Food
By 7.26.09
John visited his local Rhode Island Subway every weekday for the past two months to enjoy what he thought was a healthy lunch. That all came to end after he overheard a Subway worker say to her colleague: “I don’t know how anybody could eat this stuff everyday. It’s disgusting and it will make you fat.”
Domino's: Eat Your Pasta. In A Bread Bowl.
By 4.23.09
The booger-tainted pizza chain has taken this opportunity to introduce their newest food innovation. Pasta… in a bread bowl! Just in case there aren’t enough carbs in pasta… why not eat the bowl it comes in?
Krispy Kreme Unveils New Dipping Sauce: Ice Cream!
By 9.27.08
Krispy Kreme is hoping a new bait will attract health-conscious consumers to their gluttony palaces: soft-serve ice cream.
Mott's Will Help You Water Down Your Juice If You Like
By 9.9.08
Here’s a perfect example of why you should always approach “healthy” labeling on food products with a skeptical eye. Summer did a quick side-by-side comparison of regular Mott’s apple juice with new Mott’s Plus Light. What she found was that except for a few added vitamins, the Light product was just Mott’s juice diluted by 50% with water—but selling for the same price as the 100% juice.
Starbucks New Healthy Breakfast Tasted, Opinions Formed
By 9.5.08
Starbucks bravely asked us to try their new…
11 Healthiest Foods You're Not Eating
By 7.2.08
The NYT Well Blog has a list of 11 healthy foods that you’re probably not eating. Why? Because they’re beets and cabbage, that’s why. Oh well, maybe you can get Jerry Seinfeld’s wife to tell you how other people figured out how to hide these foods in pizza. Just kidding, they’re not all bad. There’s blueberries! And cinnamon!
FDA Ban Fails To Catch 1 Million Pounds Of Chinese Seafood
By 8.8.07
1 million pounds of shrimp, eel, and catfish somehow slipped past the FDA’s ban on Chinese seafood. All seafood covered by the ban arrives at U.S. ports under an import alert, which ostensibly prevents the fish from leaving until private testing proves the absence of banned antibiotics and drugs. Chinese importers, resorting to tricks possibly gleaned from Wile E. Coyote, evade the FDA by shipping their contraband under the names and addresses of companies unaffected by the import alert. From the AP:
Vitamine Shoppe Multivitamins Contaminated With Lead
By 1.19.07
- Of 21 brands of multivitamins on the market in the United States and Canada selected by ConsumerLab.com and tested by independent laboratories, just 10 met the stated claims on their labels or satisfied other quality standards.
