I was absolutely stunned to learn that it takes $50 million to inform people that the same information that's already on the side or the back of the box is now on the front of the box, with slightly larger font.The article claims that this change represents the "most significant modernization of food labels since the Nutrition Labeling and Education Act of 1990." Better yet, the "experts" in the article predict that Nutrition Keys will help consumers make more informed and healthy eating decisions.
I have my own prediction: it won't. How many times have you found yourself standing the grocery store, a can of vegetables in one hand, a box of donuts in the other, hopelessly confused as to which is the healthier option? If only these food products somehow provided some kind of guidance on nutrition information that didn't require the excruciating effort of picking up the packages and turning them around! Somehow I struggle to understand how this revolutionary change will shrink America's collective waistline...
The problem isn't availability of information; the problem is that the typical shopper just doesn't care about healthy eating. Picture the average American consumer...better yet, don't bother using your imagination--visit peopleofwalmart.com, where other people have taken pictures of average American consumers for you.As you browse through the photos of these nauseatingly-dressed if not dangerously overweight shoppers, ask yourself this--even with the new, incredibly convenient Nutrition Keys icons in place, can you picture these people scouring food packages, thoughtfully weighing the calorie, sodium, and carbohydrate trade-offs between various snacking options before filling their shopping carts? I have little doubt that even if Hostess labeled Twinkies packages with giant, bold, flashing warnings that read, " IF YOU EAT TOO MANY OF THESE, YOU WILL BECOME FAT(TER) AND (MORE) UNATTRACTIVE!", the average consumer wouldn't pause for a second.
Working at a food company has shown me just how expensive and time-consuming it can be to implement packaging changes like these. And if the food industry is going to change packages anyway, why not try something that might actually work? Before I had even finished reading the article, I was already brainstorming potential packaging changes that might actually force people to think twice before grabbing that bag of pork rinds or that giant tub of whip cream.
Why not put a shiny reflective surface--a makeshift mirror, if you will--on the fronts of food packages, which would allow portly consumers to get a good look at themselves as they pick up the package? I know browsing through the photos at People of Wal-Mart kills my appetite every time. It seems much more likely to succeed than moving nutrition information to the front of the box...
But just as I was preparing to pat myself on the back and applaud my creative solution, I realized the reflective packaging option was every bit as useless as the Nutrition Keys icon. When people use the phrase "god doesn't give with both hands," they are usually referring to the fact that you can't have everything in life, or you can't be good looking and intelligent, or something along those lines. That phrase is typically used to point out that god doesn't hand out too much of a good thing. But I've found it goes the other way, too.
You see, god is a bottomless pit of kindness. He may not give any one person too much of a good thing, but he normally doesn't go overboard when handing out the bad, either--for example, he doesn't burden the morbidly obese with the dual punishment of unattractiveness and shame. How do I know this? Unfortunately, this lesson was permanently etched into my memory on a vacation back in 2007. As soon as I spotted this abomination, I couldn't bear to look, yet I couldn't turn away...or resist snapping this photo:
If you look carefully, you'll notice that with my prodigious photographic skills, I was able to capture my subject and a Dairy Queen logo all in the same shot. This photo is as rare a specimen as photos of African wildebeests feeding in their natural habitat. I kid you not--National Geographic has contacted me with some serious offers for this shot, but for four years I've held out and saved this treasure for the blog. This woman may not be much to look at, with her bikini top and the fleshy "skinner-tube" around her waist, but apparently shame is not an issue. And that's precisely why shaming consumers with an unflattering reflection on the outside of a food package will do nothing to stop the feeding frenzy.
Nutrition Keys certainly won't help, and mirrored packaging is equally ineffective. Where does that leave us? I'm not exactly sure...but after reading the article and giving it some thought, I'm officially making two obvious and undoubtedly accurate predictions: (1) Nutrition Keys will do absolutely nothing to help Americans make healthier food choices, and (2) the Grocery Manufacturer's Association is about to throw away $50 million in advertising dollars trying to prove people like me wrong.
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