Smart Choices, according to who?

I bet you've seen the little green circle with the check mark on some of your favorite foods and beverages. The green circle (pictured left) usually includes a description of why the product is a smart choice to eat or drink. At first blush, I liked this concept. Choosing healthy food and beverages should be easier and more straightforward, and I assumed that the campaign was part of a government initiative. But later I became suspicious. Why weren't some of the healthiest products at the grocery store labeled as "smart choices," while KC Masterpiece Baked Lays and Gatorade were? So, I decided to do some investigating (aka looking at the website), and discovered that the whole program is a Pepsico marketing scheme.

I find the whole thing very misleading because nowhere on the smart choice label does it mention that it's a Pepsico initiative. Further, the website's only reference to its creator is a small insignia tucked away in the bottom corner of the page. The smart spot is tricky enough to fool consumers into believing that it is some sort of official endorsement and that all consumer products were eligible to recieve the smart spot. However, its true function is a Pepsico endorsement of its own products. They were able to create their own standards and thresholds for what determines a smart choice. This strikes me as a very Bush Administration-esque self-regulation policy (does this make sense to anyone else?)

(Gatorade: Is it in you? And if it is, is it making you fat?)

Let's look at one of their products that recieves the smart spot, Gatorade. Pepsico has done a great job marketing Gatorade as the drink of choice for athletes. Michael Jordan drank it, so it's probably suited for you too, right? Forget all of the rehydration, electrolyte replenishment rhetoric and call a spade a spade, Gatorade is sugar water and food coloring. Sugar water can serve an important nutritional purpose if you're participating in strenuous athletic activities, like a football or basketball game. But if you're downing a bottle of electric grape gatorade while reading this informative blog, it's just going to add empty calories to your diet. A 32 ounce bottle of gatorade has 200 calories and 56 grams of sugar. Of course, a bottle wouldn't tell you that because they consider a 32 ounce bottle as four servings, another tricky tactic used to by the food and beverage industry to skew their printed nutrition facts.

Many of you already know this, and probably wonder why I care. It's because I get the feeling that the smart spot endorsements will lead people, and more importantly parents, into believing that they now have a free pass to consume as much of these products as they want. Parents will load their kids up with Gatorade, Pepsi One, and Baked Lays, with the intention of being healthy, when in reality they're most likely passing up some of the healthiest, and mostly non-Pepsico, products available. So I guess the take away message is to keep vigilant at the grocery store, and uhh eat lil smokies.