The guy who came up with the stupid idea says they don’t work:
If the nutrition label doesn’t work, how else can the government help consumers make more informed, healthier choices? For starters, the FDA should be more like the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, the people who created the Internet. Instead of just focusing on trying to fix the unfixable, the FDA could shift its focus toward thinking more creatively about viable solutions and give up on what isn’t working.
First, the FDA would need to honestly concede how little it knows about how different foods and food combinations actually affect individuals with distinct genetic and environmental factors, along with their personal preferences or capacity (or willingness) to exercise. The FDA would need to expand its base of knowledge and understanding within these areas and then consider how manufacturers and consumers would respond to any changes the FDA suggests as a result.
But that would involve having to do real science.
And of course, despite their failure, Michelle and the FDA commissioner continue to cheer lead for them.
[Update a while later]
Sorry, there’s nothing magical about breakfast.
I rarely eat breakfast, except on weekends, or vacation. I’ll generally go all day without eating if I’m just working at home. But when I do eat breakfast, I try to make it mostly protein and fat. Cereal is a dietary abomination, invented by a scientific whack job in Battle Creek.
Seems to me that it’s a good idea to give the consumer accurate information on what’s in the product he’s eating. Skip the value judgments/”information” on what’s healthy, and just tell me what’s there.
This is one of the things that we want FDA to do: labeling.
It would require a lot more complicated label than the current ones to do it right, and it would remain very misleading, particularly given the nonsense about calories and fat that too many people believe, thanks to a decades-long government-sponsored disinformation campaign.
In the age of the internet, why not put a url to the ingredients?
That way, those who want to know can find out.
Competitors already now the ingradients through analysis and probably a level of corporate espionage
I believe it was Edward Bernaise, Wilson’s WWI propagandist, who came up with breakfast being the “most important meal of the day” as a way to sell more meat. He was the first to use a “scientific study” in advertising. Bernaise hated people.
Adam Curtis’ documentary, The Century of the Self, discusses this.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eJ3RzGoQC4s
I seem to remember from a documentary that a cerial breakfast good for you was pushed by one of the kelloggs guys in response to heart attacks being caused by, according to him, the ol’ english breakfast.
Is that the battle creek reference?
The Battle Creek reference is the Kellogg brothers a century ago.
If you’re opposed to the commercial cereals, perhaps you should try pork cracklin’s with milk. 🙂
I don’t know if it would stay crunchy, though.
You misspelled “beer.”
Sorry, there’s nothing magical about breakfast.
Except it stops my stomach from making noises.