The AP is reporting that Venezuela has banned Coke Zero because the company allegedly didn’t declare a potentially harmful artificial sweetener when it “received its initial health permit to begin selling the product in April.”
junk food
Self Check-Out At Supermarket Means Fewer Impulse Buys
By 6.3.09
Consumer Reports says that the supermarket self check-out line is better on your wallet and your gut. “You’ll find fewer snacks,” they write, “and because of the shorter wait time, you’ll have less time to contemplate a snack attack.” There’s even a study that shows impulse purchases dropped by nearly a third for women and a sixth for men when they chose the self check-out line. You also get to play with the scanner, touchscreen, and bag area, which is a lot more fun than just standing around. (That’s right, “bag area.”)
Convert Your Favorite Snack Into Sugar Cubes
By 5.5.09
This website displays photos of soft drinks, smoothies, candy, and even vegetables next to little piles of sugar cubes that represent the total sugar in them. This is a great service, because if you ever go into space you can simply use this site to pack a baggie full of an equivalent amount of cubes. Then you can enjoy your Space McFlurry without worrying about liquid contamination of the spacecraft.
Grocery Growth Ray To Hit Ketchup, Chips
By 2.24.09
A grocery growth ray is set to hit a popular condiment and several kinds of baked corn with names ending “tos.” To push the brands as being good values, Heinz will be selling slightly larger ketchup bottles, and Frito-Lay is adding 20% to Tostitos, Fritos, Cheetos and Doritos – without raising the price. Unlike the grocery shrink ray, you can bet this change will be loudly trumpeted on the package.
Coke Sued Over VitaminWater Claims
By 1.15.09
The Center for Science in the Public Interest has announced a class-action lawsuit against Coca-Cola over its VitaminWater line, on the grounds that it makes deceptive claims about the nutritional benefits of its drinks.
7 Most Unhealthy Carnival Foods
By 7.1.08
There are few things in the universe more evil than carnival food. Why do they feed us deep-fried sugary food before we get on rides that spin us around and around? Why is it that carnies aren’t all 500 lbs.? Must be the meth. Check out Newsweek’s list of the 7 most unhealthy carnival foods.
Brawndo Becomes A Real Product, Gets Taste Tested
By 12.18.07
Remember Brawndo from “Idiocracy”—the world’s best and only beverage, the one that mutilates your thirst, and is so awesome that we even use it for irrigation? It’s now a real product, for those of you who enjoy mixing satire about commercialism with actual commercialism. (Wait—how does that work?) Naturally nobody over 12 years old or sane will probably want to actually taste it—it’s just another bad energy drink with fun packaging—so Sarah at CalorieLab has taken a bullet for the rest of us. Good; now we can go back to watching reruns of “Ow My Balls.”
Congress Set To Ban Soda, Junk Food From Schools
By 12.2.07
Snickers and Cokes would be a thing of the past at school cafeterias and vending machines if the Senate approves an ambitious amendment from Senators Harkin (D-IA) and Murkowsky (R-AK). The amendment to the Farm Bill would establish strict federal guidelines limiting the sale of deliciously unhealthy treats brimming with sugar, salt, and fat.
The nutrition standards would allow only plain bottled water and eight-ounce servings of fruit juice or plain or flavored low-fat milk with up to 170 calories to be sold in elementary and middle schools. High school students could also buy diet soda or, in places like school gyms, sports drinks. Other drinks with as many as 66 calories per eight ounces could be sold in high schools, but that threshold would drop to 25 calories per eight-ounce serving in five years.
Cereal Makers Target Kids, Evade Junk Food Advertising Ban
By 7.22.07
Crafty cereal makers may weasel out of their promise to stop advertising junk food to audiences under 12 by fudging serving size information. Eleven cereal makers last week set the threshold for products advertised to children at 12 grams of sugar per serving. According to the New York Times’ original coverage, many cereal makers are already “trying to reformulate the foods to meet nutritional guidelines.” Why reformulate when you can change the labels?
Should We Unilaterally Ban Junk Food Advertising Targetting Children?
By 7.18.07
The New York Times reports that eleven huge food companies, in the face of regulatory intervention, lawsuits, and a forthcoming government study on childhood obesity, agreed to voluntarily withdraw junk food advertising from children’s TV shows targeted at an under-12 audience.
Put Down the Bag of Chips, and Drink From the Bottle of Oil
By 9.22.06
We’re not sure what’s more horrifying: The fact that half of British schoolchildren eat a pack of potato chips (or crisps, if you prefer) every single day, or the fact that such a rate of chip consumption means you’re ingesting more than a gallon of vegetable oil every year.
Jeremy Scott’s Fast Food Fashion
By 2.13.06
s fashion show last week. As the photo series demonstrates, apparently the high fashion you should sprint out to buy next fall is junk-food themed sleeper ware, complete with over-sized donut bracelets.
