{"id":19033,"date":"2009-11-09T07:22:04","date_gmt":"2009-11-09T12:22:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/?p=19033"},"modified":"2009-11-09T10:45:03","modified_gmt":"2009-11-09T15:45:03","slug":"immune-protection-or-more-corn-syrup","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/daily-astrology\/immune-protection-or-more-corn-syrup\/","title":{"rendered":"Immune Protection, or More Corn Syrup?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Words are tricky things. They have power (“We hold these truths to be self-evident\u2026”), but they are also mutable. There’s a brilliant example of this currently in the cereal aisle of your local grocery store, where several products of the Kellogg’s company boldly proclaim on the front of the packaging that each “helps support your child’s IMMUNITY.”<\/p>\n

\"Vintage
Vintage Rice Krispies box. Photo: Wikipedia.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Yet these cereals aren’t ones built on whole grains, or bran, or shredded wheat. Nope, they’re built on krispies \u2013 as in Rice Krispies, Cocoa Krispies, and Frosted Krispies. This is the latest trend of marketing ordinary packaged items as health foods.<\/p>\n

The claim is based on the fact that Kellogg’s has increased the amount of synthetic vitamins they spray onto the cereals, bringing the dosage up to 25% of the recommended daily allowance. But, as The Early Show<\/a> on CBS reported this week, these are still sugar-packed kids’ cereals, chock full o’ high fructose corn syrup and hydrogenated oils. In our view, these two ingredients are the junk food dividing line.<\/p>\n

The claim of enhanced immunity raised red flags all over the place, among not only parents and nutritionists but the government of San Francisco (where everyone is eligible for government health insurance), which has asked for evidence backing up that claim.<\/p>\n

The Early Show<\/em> sought such proof, too, and got this statement from Kellogg’s: “These nutrients have been identified by the Institute of Medicine and other studies as playing an important role in the body’s immune system. Therefore, we believe the claim … is supported by reliable and competent scientific evidence.”<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

There again you see the power of words, this time as exercised by a public relations professional. The company essentially admitted they’ve done no empirical testing on the immunity claim, though not in so many words.<\/p>\n

While experts interviewed by The Early Show<\/em> expressed serious misgivings and general disapproval of the claim, over at NaturalNews.com<\/a> the tone trended towards outright scorn.<\/p>\n

“Cocoa Krispies isn’t even real food, if you ask me. It’s a nutrient-deficient, highly processed, sugar-laden source of empty calories. To claim it ‘supports IMMUNITY’ is so far-fetched that you’d have to be living in some alternate universe to even think about believing it,” wrote Mike Adams.<\/p>\n

Cereal manufacturers (not to mention fast food restaurants) have long proclaimed their fare to be “part of a balanced diet.” However, there you get into that language trap again. “Diet” is, perhaps, the most misused word in Western popular culture. That’s because it has primarily come to mean “weight-loss program.” Someone generally only says “I’m on a diet” if they’re following a specific regimen, simple or complex, to lose weight.<\/p>\n

But we’re all on diets, even if it’s Kit-Kats and cucumbers. What you eat is your diet. And more and more often, what you eat is processed and packaged food (which, the BBC reports<\/a>, could increase the risk of depression).<\/p>\n

And that is about the worst thing for one’s immune system since DDT.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Words are tricky things. They have power (“We hold these truths to be self-evident\u2026”), but they are also mutable. There’s a brilliant example of this currently in the cereal aisle of your local grocery store, where several products of the Kellogg’s company boldly proclaim on the front of the packaging that each “helps support your … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"generate_page_header":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19033"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19033"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19033\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19033"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19033"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19033"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}