Is Pepsi in an evangelical crusade against the added trans fats and sugars in their products? No. No they aren’t. Pepsi is scared into shaking, like a sailor clinging to the mast of a sinking ship. In Pepsi's case, their ship is sinking into a sea of government regulation. Pepsi has to sell its products to make profits, bottom line. The problem for Pepsi lies in a public which is steadily becoming more informed and conscious regarding their food choices.
Pepsi is desperately trying to avoid regulation wrought road of big tobacco. High dollar anti-smoking campaigns and government levies aim to strangle big tobacco’s profit margins and educate an increasingly hip general public about the dangers of smoking. Pepsi wants to become the government’s next whipping boy and the public’s next failing health scapegoat as bad as the Marlboro man wants to spend his afternoon accessorizing at Louis Vuitton.
Pepsi is nervous enough to espouse they will remove every high sugar vending machine from k-12 schools by 2012. Pepsi also recently claimed salt, sugar and fat content will be reduced from their brands by 25% before year 2020. The trend is towards healthy nutritional choices and Pepsi is quietly distancing itself from its rationalizing and deflecting public relations policies of the 90s, when Pepsi’s marketing campaigns referred to their snacks as "fun for you."
Pepsi’s stuck between looming government and social pressures to provide healthier options and the reality that in many cases their best customers don’t want those options. “Fatty Boom-Boom” is a term you might’ve heard thrown around a locker room or two to reference people who consume 24 cans of Pepsi a week and require a forklift to use the restroom. Pepsi has a slightly more affectionate, yet equally as creepy and much more sterile term for the boom-booms, who just happen to be their best customers: “frequent users”.
So what happens when you alienate the “frequent users” and aim into the hipper, more educated organic soy milk sipping and sustainable denim wearing hipsters? You get "Tropicana Juice". A financial disaster compared to the launch of "New Coke" which fell on deaf ears and uninterested palates during the mid eighties. Other Pepsi ventures into the health snack niche have met similar fates. Pepsi and other large conglomerates who are now throwing their hat into the health conscious ring are receiving a harsh realization. Many nutritionally hip consumers have already found the niche brands which they are loyal to.
Regardless of the outcomes of Pepsi and their government regulation affairs, I think we all deserve to know what’s what about the food we put in our bodies. Eating a Twinkie with HIGH FIBER!! plastered on the box would be akin to purchasing a 500,000 mile, 60’s era car off a used car lot for reliable transportation solely because the salesman scribbled NEW TIRES!! on the windshield. We often want to believe that we can accept the manufacturer’s claims which labels our food’s packaging. After all, the government regulates these claims don’t they? And wouldn’t it just be plain wrong for the people who serve us our food to not be anything but one hundred percent crystalline clear about the pros and cons of their products? Wake up. The company selling you your white eggs and bread is no different than the used car salesman offloading his lemons. Realize that food, like almost every other industry is driven by sales and revenues. Whatever the public wants to see and see is what food companies will show and tell them. If eggs produced using green energy are a hit this week, the companies who produce eggs will begin using ten percent of their energy to produce those eggs with windmills, now they’re green eggs and the consumer is happy again. If eggs produced with extra vitamins are a hit this week, the companies who produce eggs will locate commercial grade vitamin D at ten cents per ton and throw in a handful or two on top of the chicken feed, now they’re vitamin eggs and the consumer is happy again. This is sales and marketing 101.Smoke and mirrors will diffuse the true intention, to get you to buy eggs no matter what the latest trend, latest fad or latest Johnny come lately tells you to.
So what are us normal people, who love to eat but would also like to refrain from reducing our years of quality life to do? I mean we do have to eat, don’t we!? I can’t solve all of your problems and to teach you 5 fairly easy rules that can help immensely:
1. Avoid Trans Fat and High Fructose Corn Syrup - Both of these manmade food additives where developed as cheaper alternatives to natural fat and sugar. Your body still has little use for either. In one study it was found that 7 grams of trans fat per day, the amount found in a medium French fry, increased your chance of cardiac failure by 50%.
2. Go Organic with your animals - It’s true, organic isn’t a cure all. But what organic does mean is that the foods with the USDA Organic label, have not been raised or produced with antibiotics, hormones or carnivorous feed stocks. Changing your poultry, dairy, beef and other animal products to organic wherever possible can have great benefits to your health.
3. Unleash your inner Julia Childs - Here’s an easy way to get even the busiest people to re embrace their inner chef. Set a goal to prepare just one meal per month. “But I don’t know how to cook!” The first time I wanted to cook shrimp I googled “shrimp recipes” and I found at least half a dozen sites dedicated to shrimp recipes, so the problem is not that you can’t find a good recipe. Just follow the directions and repeat this mantra “Everything is going to be ok.”
4. Learn the Glycemic Index - Merely changing your carbohydrate intake from bad ones, donuts, to good ones, granola cereal can help you stay healthier. Some good examples of quality carbohydrates are oatmeal, beans, lentils, brown rice and other whole grains. Again if you aren’t familiar how to prepare these foods so they taste better than your shoe, refer to rule 3.
5. Cheat - Yes that’s right, you can cheat. It’s ok to go overboard every once and a while, as you start your new endeavor to eat more healthy, vow for three meals a week you won’t count calories, fats, proteins, fibers or anything else that can take the fun out of pigging out. As long as you aren’t gorging at every meal, a few meals a week where you do is ok and can actually be beneficial.
Pepsi is here to stay for the indefinite future. Governments may always be about one step behind when it comes to protecting the nutritional welfare of an educated society. So take it upon yourself to slowly begin the process or regulating your own nutritional intake. And remember that no one is ever finished learning all there is to know, it is a lifelong process.
The Economist's March 27th article entitled "Pepsi gets a Makeover,"
(1,200 words)
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