Tuesday, October 26, 2010

Little Bites

   
So.  Nicely illustrated here is a way savvy marketers food manufacturers manipulate the packaging to entice us, the consumers, to buy and subsequently consume their 210-calorie-11-grams-of-fat-per-serving product.  NO high fructose corn syrup! Made with REAL chocolate! Good source of calcium! 

See?  Those fudge brownies are totally healthy.    
Say you:  Please tell me this isn't becoming a bait-and-switch blog where you start going all "there's an obesity epidemic in our country" on your followers and incorporate preaching to us about the evils of the food industry? 
Say me: God, no.  Those just got my attention initially because from a few feet away I thought the name of the product was "Lite Brites" and can't they get in trouble using that name and what ever happened to those things, anyway? ->

7 comments:

tuesday@11 said...

Little bites of fudge brownies? Impossible!

Tanya said...

Yet another slick marketing scheme to entice us to buy. They're "little"!

Anonymous said...

Consumerism and obesity are linked. Food advertising fits right in IMHO. On a side note, they can't be nearly as good as homemade brownies.

Carolyn (From C*n*d*) said...

Recently attended a 'rounds' regarding whether childhood obesity was a child protection issue. Interesting statistics were presented on the cost (per 1000 calories) of different foods. For example, fish and poultry are about $18.00 and change for that amount. Sugar, on the other hand, was a whopping $1.50 or so. Taxes and Subsidies on Food to Address Obesity
Sean B Cash, Dept of Rural Economy, U of A –May 2008 (University of Alberta)

Tanya said...

Anon: I think you're right on all points. They certainly can't be nearly as good as my own. ;)

@Carolyn: I think it's disingenuous and unfair to turn obesity into a child protection issue because ultimately it becomes a class issue as you touched upon. Healthy foods aren't subsidized like corn and are much more expensive to buy. Have you noticed some apples cost almost a dollar a pop? Milk is almost $3 a gallon here. When you're on a highly restricted income, of course you're going to buy the Koolaide and/or soda instead.

Tanya said...

Of course, one could make the argument that child welfare is a class issue in and of itself.

Nectarine said...

I still have my Lite Brite.

I know that have issued different versions since then, but I don't know if any are still available in stores.