If you were a child in the 1950s, you no doubt cut your teeth on a breakfast bowl of Kellogg's Sugar Frosted Flakes, Sugar Corn Pops, or maybe Post Sugar Crisp. The word "sugar" was a magical word back then and the name of the game in marketing. Yet, only a few years earlier, in the corporate food research kitchens of General Foods, Kellogg's and others, a cultural dilemma was underway in an industry that saw itself as manufacturers of healthy food with a responsibility to its customers – especially children.
At the time, proponents of sugar-coating cereal were arguing that the nutritional value of the product wouldn't change; they'd just add more sugar instead of grain. After all, adding a controlled amount of sugar to the mix was surely preferable to kids adding an unlimited amount before eating.
At Kellogg's the debate about sugar in cereal raged for years between the founding Kellogg brothers. Dr. John Kellogg believed strongly that sugar was unhealthy and he was vehemently against using it as an ingredient. His brother, W.K., had no such problem. Even after both brothers passed away the argument remained. A large percentage of Kellogg stock was now owned by the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, a charitable organization established to promote children's health and education. Many Board members felt that it just didn't seem right for a children's health organization to promote presweetened cereals.
In the end, such reasoning gave way to the louder "return on investment" message that sugar-coated cereal was delivering. When Kellogg's entered the sweetened cereal market with the released Sugar Corn Pops in 1950, it became so immediately successful that the company had to run its Omaha, Nebraska, plant 24 hours a day to meet demand, thus ending any lingering debate.
Though the word "sugar" was long ago removed from the names of popular cereals, added sugar has not gone away; far from it. It remains a staple ingredient of breakfast cereal to this day. An analysis released by the Environmental Working Group in May revealed that, on average, children's cereals contained 40 percent more sugar than adults' cereals and more sugar today than even a few years ago. One recommended serving of the many popular products studied contained a third of the amount of sugar a child should consume in an entire day.
Says nutritionist Dawn Undurraga, co-author of the report, Children's Cereals: Sugar by the Pound: "When you exclude obviously sugar-heavy foods like candy, cookies, ice cream, soft and fruit drinks, breakfast cereals are the single greatest source of added sugars in the diets of children under the age of 8."
In today's marketing-driven society, with its slick packaging, animated cartoon spokes-critters, and claims of high vitamin and nutrient content, it's easy for a parent to get confused and lose sight of one essential fact when choosing cereal: Excess sugar consumption is a major public health problem and to be avoided.
Part of the problem for folks is that sugar is but one problem they face when choosing a product. For years now, it has been much easier to count an ever-increasing list of chemicals in processed foods rather than to do the math on where a product fits into the recommended daily calorie intake. And people are taking notice. This parade of non-real ingredients may have much to do with why, in a recent survey conducted by Mintel market research, only 38% of respondents said they trust what companies say about their products on food labels.
In response to such studies, you'll notice that things that sound like they are part of a chemistry test are now being scrubbed from the ingredient labels of processed foods. It is a movement called "clean labeling," and big companies are racing to do it before they lose any more market share.
In fairness some companies might be finally trying to make more wholesome products, but there are those who say this swap-out to clean-label ingredients has had more to do with marketing food products than truly making the product healthier. This rush to make highly processed foods seem pure and basic may also be causing problems for vulnerable customers, such as people with food allergies.
Some experts also believe the kinds of fats food makers are switching to may not be any better for us. Palm oil is a perfect example. It's become one of the leading replacements for partially hydrogenated fats. According to the USDA, Americans consumed nearly five times more palm oil in 2014 than we did in 2001. At 51 percent saturated fat, palm oil contains more heart-clogging fats than lard.
Some evidence suggests that calories from the "cleaner" sounding ingredient, "fructose," now a pretty common ingredient in processed cereals, are more easily stored as fat than glucose, the product it is replacing. Fructose may also raise levels of harmful blood fats more than glucose does. Concern is mounting that eating too much fructose may set the body on a path to obesity, insulin resistance, and diabetes.
And here's the kicker. Since 1958, the FDA has used the designation "generally recognized as safe" as a way to quickly exempt common and widely used food additives from rigorous and often lengthy formal safety reviews. In 1997, the FDA began allowing food companies to review their own new ingredients and make that determination. They can submit those reviews to the FDA for acceptance, but it's not required by law. In February 2013, the Pew Charitable Trusts published an in-depth report about gaps in food safety. They estimated that out of 10,000 ingredients in processed foods, the FDA has not reviewed the safety of about 3,000.
One thing we should be able to read loud and clear when it comes to food labels: We have a long way to go before problems with them are truly cleaned up.
Write to Chuck Norris with your questions about health and fitness. Follow Chuck Norris through his official social media sites, on Twitter @chucknorris and Facebook's "Official Chuck Norris Page." He blogs at ChuckNorrisNews.blogspot.com.