Snap, Crackle, ‘Crock’
Kellogg’s Rice Krispies Bogus Health Claim
Kellogg's misleads consumers with a hokum health headline.
Have you seen the latest labeling lie? Once again, it’s in the cereal aisle, this time touting the whopper that by eating a bowl of “snap, crackle, pop,” you’ll boost your immunity! That’s right—who needs a multivitamin when you can arm your immune system with a tasty bowl of Rice Krispies?
Good grief!
Kellogg’s, the company that makes Rice Krispies, must think we’re real idiots. Why else would they put a giant yellow label on their familiar blue box with the headline: “Now helps support your child’s IMMUNITY”?
Kellogg’s has issued a rebuttal to their wildly misleading claim. In a statement released to the press, Kellogg’s said that the added nutrients in boxes of Rice Krispies have been “identified by the Institute of Medicine and other studies as playing a role in the body’s immune system. Therefore, we believe the claim…is supported by reliable and competent scientific evidence.”
The nutrients of which they speak are vitamins A, C and E. Since May, boxes of Kellogg’s Rice Krispies have a higher amount of these vitamins, going from 10 percent to 25 percent of your recommended daily amount per serving.
While it’s true, vitamins like C and E are antioxidants and are vital to a healthy immune system, but it takes a ginormous leap of faith to believe that a 15 percent increase of vitamins in cereal will improve immunity. Heck, why don’t they have boxes saying “Now helps support your child’s EYESIGHT,” since vitamin A is good for eyesight? Or how about “Now helps support your child’s SKIN,” since vitamin E is a great nutrient for healthy skin?
I’ll tell you why: Because healthy skin and good eyesight is not in the news cycle. What is? How to maintain a healthy immune system.
With all the hoopla and hullabaloo around the swine flu, Kellogg’s is trying to capitalize on consumers’ fears by saying that their toasted rice cereal can protect kids’ immune system (capitalizing on swine flu fears is a charge that Kellogg’s flatly denies). But if they were really concerned about a child’s immunity and health, why did they only increase the vitamin content of Rice Krispies to 15 percent? Why not 50 percent? Or 100 percent? Because they know that their claims are bogus, that’s why.
If Kellogg’s was really concerned about kids’ health, they’d stop using high fructose corn syrup, and they wouldn’t be using so much sugar, the second most used ingredient in Rice Krispies (remember, food companies must list their ingredients in descending order, from most to least).
If you really want to boost your child’s immune function, forget the cereal. Cereal can be a fine food, but let’s not kid ourselves into believing that it will buoy immune function. Do it with breakfast foods that are naturally high in immune-defending nutrients, like freshly squeezed orange juice, natural grains like quinoa (which is one of the few grains that’s a complete protein) and vegetables like carrots (you probably don’t think of carrots as a breakfast food, but they’re a great addition to freshly baked bran muffins).
Wildly misleading claims like these are likely to change anytime soon. Thus, when it comes to health claims, follow the rule that’s so often used it’s become a cliché: If it sounds too good to be true, more often than not, it probably is.
Sources:
cbsnews.com
whfoods.com
msnbc.msn.com
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Posted: November 5th, 2009 under Cereal, Misleading Headlines.
Tags: Cereal, cereal nutrition, rice krispies cereal
