Minimum Daily Requirement of Truth and Acceptable Daily Levels of Lies

I first remember being aware of blatant false advertisement as a kid - maybe I was ten, but I'm really not sure - when I ordered the 'fresh strawberries' for dessert in a restaurant.

They brought me very recently thawed frozen strawberries.  I was indignant. "These aren't fresh!" I said to the waitress.  Without blinking an eye, she replied, "Yes, they're fresh frozen."  I couldn't believe it then, and I still can't believe that people can so blatantly twist the truth.

This all comes up as today I looked at this cereal package and  thought, "What does this have to do with Grapes or Nuts?"




So I checked out the ingredients:

Do you see anything related to grapes or nuts?





That reminded me of a photo I'd taken earlier this summer thinking there'd be a time it would fit into a blog post.

"good food for the fun of it"

We see this sort of thing so often that we forget to react, "Why is this 'good' food?"   "Good" for what?  Frito-Lay company?  (Owned by Pepsi, another healthy food company) Good for diabetes?   Hey, I like crispy food and potato chips are among the crispiest.  

But most of us know that more than a couple really aren't that healthy.  

Actually, when I went to the FritoLay website, I realized that things aren't quite as bad as they used to be when chips were made with trans fats.   The ingredients (from their website) are to the left.   This doesn't look all that bad.

This is for a two ounce container of chips, a serving size is one ounce.  15 chips = one ounce = 150 calories, 90 from fat.

Ingredients:  Potatoes,  Sunflower or Corn oil, and salt.  

It is clear that they are VERY conscious of consumer interest in health. They have a number of webpages dedicated to answering questions about nutrition and health.  There's no more trans fats.

But let's remember that these are ultimately written by marketing folks, not doctors.  And they are not all that easy to deconstruct.  Let's just look at a couple of their FAQ's on their "Straight Talk on Snacking" page.

"Q:  Aren’t all fried foods unhealthy?

A:  Actually, no. Frying itself isn’t unhealthy—it’s the type of oil in which the frying is done that  matters. Certain oils, such as tropical and partially hydrogenated oils have saturated fats or trans fats, which are considered “bad fats.” But Frito-Lay chips are fried in healthier oils like corn and sunflower oils, which contain 80% or more of polyunsaturated and monounsaturated fat—the “good fats.”"

• "Frying itself isn't unhealthy" - when I looked up "Is frying unhealthy?"  just about all the links on the first three pages said yes.  Here's one from a doctor's website explaining why.  I'm not saying it is, but I'm pointing out that a lot of people would disagree with Fritolay's statement. 

• OK, they talk about the trans fats - partially hydrogenated oils and saturated fats - as the bad fats.  (Large food companies only changed from trans fats when they feared they would be banned, now they don't even mention they used those fats and didn't so voluntarily drop them.) 

In their next FAQ - "But aren't your chips high in fat?" their answer contains this explanation:

. . . The good news about all our chips is that we make them with “good fats”—polyunsaturated and monounsaturated fats, which have heart health benefits because they can actually lower bad cholesterol, so long as the total calories consumed do not increase.

"Good fats' is relative.  Webmd says,

when eaten in moderation and used to replace saturated or trans fats, can help lower cholesterol levels and reduce your risk of heart disease. (emphasis added)

OK, this suggests eating 'good fats' doesn't by itself lower your risk. The risk is lowered because you substitute them for the 'bad fats' and thus you have less harm than if you had the 'bad fats' instead.  The bad fats they used to use until the government leaned on them to stop.  But that's not all.  Webmd continues:

Polyunsaturated fats, found mostly in vegetable oils, help lower both blood cholesterol levels and triglyceride levels -- especially when you substitute them for saturated fats. One type of polyunsaturated fat is omega-3 fatty acids, whose potential heart-health benefits have gotten a lot of attention.

But it turns out the 'good fats' that really do the work of lowering risk of heart disease are the fats with Omega 3 that are found in some fish and SOME oils.

Omega-3s are found in fatty fish (salmon, trout, catfish, mackerel), as well as flaxseed and walnuts. And it's fish that contains the most effective, "long-chain" type of omega-3s. The American Heart Association recommends eating 2 servings of fatty fish each week.

"Plant sources are a good substitute for saturated or trans fats, but they are not as effective as fatty fish in decreasing cardiovascular disease," notes Lichtenstein. Do keep in mind that your twice-weekly fish should not be deep-fat fried!

We can also get some lowering of heart disease risk from monounsaturated fats, but when they list the best sources, Fritolays'  corn and sunflower oils are not among those listed.  

The other "good guy" unsaturated fats are monounsaturated fats, thought to reduce the risk of heart disease. Mediterranean countries consume lots of these -- primarily in the form of olive oil -- and this dietary component is credited with the low levels of heart disease in those countries.

Monounsaturated fats are typically liquid at room temperature but solidify if refrigerated. These heart-healthy fats are typically a good source of the antioxidant vitamin E, a nutrient often lacking in American diets. They can be found in olives; avocados; hazelnuts; almonds; Brazil nuts; cashews; sesame seeds; pumpkin seeds; and olive, canola, and peanut oils.

So, while corn and sunflower oils are among the group of oils that can lower heart disease risk, they aren't among the oils that really do the most.  So their answer that their potato chips help lower the risk of heart disease, is, at best, misleading.  At worst, dishonest.  

Let's look carefully at one more of their FAQs about health.  

Q:  Won’t eating chips make me fat?A:  Weight and weight gain always goes back to calories in, calories out. Frito Lay chips (and any food, in fact) can be a part of a healthy lifestyle but moderation is important. Frito-Lay offers a number of options to help with portion control, including our multipacks and variety packs, which are an easy way to ensure the right portion, and fresh-tasting chips every time. And our 100 Calorie Mini Bites offer 100 calorie portions of some of our most popular brands including DORITOS® and CHEETOS®. 

So, what they are saying is that if you just eat a few potato chips as a snack, you won't get fat.  They are suggesting here that if you buy their one ounce bag, you will have a reasonable amount and then stop.  

Before I go on, let me remind you that this is the company that had one of the most successful advertising slogans of all times:  "Betcha can't eat just one..."   Now they are saying, "Sure they are healthy.  If you only eat 15 chips a day."

I'd also note that if you  go to thefind.com you can compare prices of buying Fritolay products in different packaging options.   You can buy 104 one ounce packages for $42 and you can buy one 12 ounce package for $3.99.  That comes out to:

one  ounce package = $.40 per ounce

12 ounce package   =  $.25 per ounce

Healthy packages are a lot more expensive.  And these appear to be wholesale prices.  I'm sure that the retail markup on a single one ounce bag is a lot more than the markup on a single 12 ounce bag.

I guess the most telling part here is the where they say, "Fritolays (and any food, in fact) can be part of a healthy life style, but moderation is important."  ANY food, no matter how unhealthy, as long as you just take a bite or two, can be part of a healthy diet.  I don't disagree with that. 

This has turned out to be a much longer post than I ever anticipated when I took the picture of the Fritolay truck. 

Back to Truth and Lies

But let's close by reminding you that the point was not so much how healthy potato chips are, but how our sensitivity to TRUTH has been eroded by the marketing of products that is a fundamental part of a capitalist society.  (I realize that some people will start calling me a communist because I've used "capitalist" in a way that is not completely positive.  But the key is whether my comment is accurate or not.  And marketing is a fundamental part of capitalism.)  Marketing has become a high science, and truth and ethics are not a major part of  marketing curricula.  

That same science today is applied to political candidates and political movements.  All parties use it, some more skillfully and less ethically than others.  So we need to awaken our thinking skills.  One in particularly, that Brain Power author Karl Albrecht called "crap detection" is critically important in this effort.  It involves seeing through the bullshit to get closer to, if not that elusive entity 'truth,' then at least to reasonable accuracy. 

The Private Sector, Without Government Oversight, Isn't Going to Tell Us

Now I also need to point out, that if it weren't for government regulation, we would have absolutely no idea what ingredients are in the foods we eat.  We'd have no way of getting even partial honesty from these companies.  Without government agencies monitoring health, we'd have no reliable data on the impacts of food and the food industry on health. (And even government data is often shaky given the influence of business on government.) The private sector wouldn't take up the cause because their reason for being is to make a profit and thus to make whatever food  people will buy as cheap as possible.  And, in our ignorance of what is in the food we buy, we would have no way of evaluating whether the food was healthy or not.  Our basic choices would be based solely on how it tastes, how it is marketed, how much it costs.  

Even with all the information we do have available, many, many people either do not read the labels or choose to make decisions about what they eat emotionally rather than rationally.  Obviously, emotion - in the form of "I really want some chocolate" - is always going to be an important and legitimate factor in choosing food.  But that needs to be balanced by understanding how much salt, how much fat, etc. is in a product. 

From Food to Politics

And  so when we move to other areas of our lives, besides food, we are so used to 'truthiness' that we easily fall into believing those things that support what we want to believe.  We discount the problems with foods we really love.  We discount the problems with politicians who says things we approve.

What if political ads had to come with percent of daily  requirements of Truth and acceptable daily levels of Lies? 

EXTRA:  Some other snack options

Remember, 15 potato chips have 150 calories, or about 10 calories per chip.

From the National Heart Lung and Blood Institute:

Fruits contain 15 grams of carbohydrate and 60 calories. One serving equals:

1 small	Apple, banana, orange, nectarine
1 med.	Fresh peach
1	Kiwi
½	Grapefruit
½	Mango
1 C	Fresh berries (strawberries, raspberries, or blueberries)
1 C	Fresh melon cubes
1⁄8th	Honeydew melon

Vegetables contain 25 calories and 5 grams of carbohydrate. One serving equals:

½ C	Cooked vegetables (carrots, broccoli, zucchini, cabbage, etc.)
1 C	Raw vegetables or salad greens
½ C	Vegetable juice
If you’re hungry, eat more fresh or steamed vegetables.

So when it comes to calories:

One apple + one banana + 1/2 cup of fresh berries   =   15 potato chips

or

Six cups of salad with raw vegetables (you could put on some lemon oil) = 15 potato chips


Betcha can't eat just 15 though.