He Said:
Defending Big Food is probably a little bit like being the defense attorney for Jeffery Dahmer. You do your thing and then leave the blogoshere under cover of darkness, I guess.
In October of 2009, I went on a little rant about the outrageous Smart Choices program dreamed up by folks like Kraft and General Mills that resulted in Froot Loops being marketed as a “smart choice” for kids. I translated the industry comments about this program for the benefit of the marketing impaired.
Similarly vexed, Marion Nestle and David Ludwig argue for a ban on all front-of package nutritional claims in a column written this month.
They are wrong, of course, and they leave me in the curious position of having to take a stand in defense of the processed food industry. And I’m not the only one. They were taken to task by law professor Timothy Litton in the British journal Public Health Nutrition who, while agreeing with their concerns about consumer protection, points out that there is the not inconsiderable matter of the First Amendment to contend with as well.
