If nutrition labels looked like this, do you think people would eat it? #Sugar #Nutrition pic.twitter.com/rZsRVLZqUD
— Michael I Goran, PhD (@michaelgoran) August 24, 2017
August 31, 2017
Why pick on Nutella?
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The answer to his question is "yes, yes I would." I mean, I've baked a carrot cake before, and I've made buttercream frosting. The breakdown of ingredients there is not exactly shocking. If anything, it makes Nutella marginally more appealing (unlike, say, if a huge proportion of the ingredients were food colouring or some kind of weird gum).
I do know I automatically roll my eyes at the " , Ph.D."
Not that I'm against PhDs or their holders, but it's usually a tell when they need you to know it right away.
As for the Nutella, I'm generally aware of what's in my junk food, of just how much sugar and fat are present in most of the real treats. I try not to pig out on them, and I try to work out after indulging. So, sure, Dr. Goran, I would eat Nutella - occasionally, a little bit, as I do now - if the nutrition label looked like that.
(Jackass.)
Are you kidding me?! Of course you would buy it. The ingredients are all appealing and delicious!
That looks better than what I assumed was in it.
In a similar fashion, lets see where and who gets our tax dollars and see if we all want to swallow that.
Mix it up a bit and you are good to go.
Please don't anybody ever do this for a tasty Johnsonville beer brat.
bagoh20 said...
...
In a similar fashion, lets see where and who gets our tax dollars and see if we all want to swallow that.
Things I wish I had written today...
+1.
Son went to Germany as a foreign exchange student about 15 years ago. Brought back a taste for Nutella on toast for breakfast, which has since spread to other members of the family. Looking at the ingredients I'm hard pressed to say it's a whole lot worse than smearing the toast with butter and strawberry jelly.
Nutella is socially acceptable frosting.
...NTTAWWT.
"If nutrition labels looked like this, do you think people would eat it?"
Are you kidding me?
It's fucking Nutella!
I think he's picking on nutella because lots of people associate nutella with sophisticated Europeans. How can it be bad for you? Have you seen how thin Europeans are?
God I hate busybodies.
I've never tried Nutella.
I've always felt out-of-the-loop with regards to it though. It's weird. It sort of appeared suddenly (in the mid to late 90s?) and everyone behaved like it always existed and was awesome, but I never got around to trying it. Guess I should.
I love that stuff. Yummy on a shortbread cookie.
You mean Nutella isn't peanut butter made with hazelnuts? I wondered where that chocolate taste came from.
You know what's even better than Nutella? Nutella and marshmallow fluff. On white bread toast. Also, buzz off fake doctor.
All that information is available in somewhat less easy-to-read form in the ingredient declaration and the nutritional label. But nevertheless, it's there. It must frustrate the nutritionist that people eat the stuff anyway.
A new abstinence campaign is born! I picture a silhouette of a woman with the ingredients layered like the right jar. Who wants to screw that?
"Why pick on Nutella?" Wasn't it invented by a white man?
BDNYC said...I think he's picking on nutella because lots of people associate nutella with sophisticated Europeans. How can it be bad for you? Have you seen how thin Europeans are?
Yeah, that's the real answer I think: Nutella is "stuff white people like." Nutella's a safe target--it's something high class urban white people enjoy, almost exclusively, so no one can be accused of racism in picking that particular food as a target. Try that with some food a non-white ethnic group likes, though, and you could be in trouble.
Added: I can't believe there's not a SWPL entry for Nutella! Here's one for hummus.
Yes, I would eat it. I have eaten it. It's delicious though a bit too rich for breakfast for my taste.
PETA does the same thing with cows and chickens and whatever else is supposedly too cute to eat. It has not worked on me at all. Having seen sausages made has only impressed me on how such dubious things can taste so good together.
Why pick on them?
Because they can, of course.
If food looked like it looks after it has been I n your stomach, do you think people would eat it?
It would just be something I continued to ignore presented in a different format.
Or, more realistically, welcome to the world of cooking.
The usual "scare people with a picture" tactic.
Nutella's serving size is two tablespoons, and it's not something to eat every day.
(The nutrition label says 200 cal, 110 from fat. 21g of carbs and 12 grams of fat in a 37g serving. It lists all the ingredients, in order by weight.
Nutella is super sweet [I can't stand it, myself] and unctuous; if anyone eating it hasn't figured out it's made of sugar and fat, the problem is not the label.
Goran seems to be qualified [his Doctorate is in biochem, dissertation on metabolic responses to toxins in rats, and he teaches at a school of Medicine] to talk about his bugaboo, childhood obesity, but he's someone with a mission, which means he has to try to chivvy and bully us all into eating how he wants, rather than being dispassionate.
Wanna stop childhood obesity, Doctor Goran? Try telling parents to lower portions of Nutella and its ilk, rather than scare them with pictures of layered glorp and get Twitter attention.
It's not as flashy, but it's probably going to be more effective.)
Actually, the only thing I can think of that would definitely dissuade me from eating it would be a film of MSG.
I don't see how labelling has changed the average waistline. Pictograms unlikely to help.
The real problem with Nutella is the sugar, as I can't have it anymore.
Which is a general problem with all sweet things.
robinintn said...
"You know what's even better than Nutella? Nutella and marshmallow fluff. On white bread toast. Also, buzz off fake doctor."
On a croissant.
Chuck
I work just down the street from the Swifts sausage plant. On a hot day when the wind is right it smells just like a garbage dump.
That's why I prefer to make my own.
I guess the campaign of forcing everyone to list the number of calories in everything has failed. Now we need a new campaign!
stlcdr said...
If food looked like it looks after it has been I n your stomach, do you think people would eat it?
Judging from the popularity of Nutella, which looks like a jar of something that's been in my stomach, apparently they would gobble it up.
The girl with a pony tail working out on a treadmill DEFINITELY has self-shame issues over her occasional Nutella binges.
Silly. You're not supposed to eat the entire jar in a sitting. It's not for filling a bowl. It's a spread.
A jar of jelly would look like a jar of sugar. Big deal.
The key to successful food marketing is to present a food as healthy and then fill it with the fat, sugar and salt that consumers really like (and which can often make otherwise-unpalatable food taste reasonably good, or at least acceptable).
Thus, the heavily sugared cereal that contains oats trumpets "heart healthy" on its label, and fruit roll-ups tout the "fruit" (not the sugar) and that can of V8 shows images of raw vegetables (not a salt block).
And Nutella, well, nuts are healthy food. Aren't they?
The bottom line is that consumers really want to be fooled, because, mostly we just want to eat tasty junk without having to feel guilty about it. And then comes some spoilsport showing a disgusting representation of what's really in that jar of Nutella.
Freeman Hunt said...
Silly. You're not supposed to eat the entire jar in a sitting. It's not for filling a bowl. It's a spread."
Yeah. The biggest dietary problem Americans have is not that they eat sugar or fat or carbs or red meat or fast food or whatever. It's that they eat far too much of all those things.
The worst thing about Nutella isn't the sugar. The same diagram can be done for many other products with the same or worse results, e.g. breakfast cereals. No, the worst part about Nutella is the palm oil. I have witnessed the massive deforestation and environmental destruction from palm oil production in Indonesia. It's a horrible thing.
It is an issue that is being addressed by palm oil users, but the issues are not resolved. In the meantime, I talk a pass on products that use significant amounts of it.
Yes, yes a thousand times YES and people would eat EVEN MORE because all the folks with a DIY streak are now making huge vats of it at home now that you've essentially handed out the recipe - the photo informs us as to the proper proportions.
Ugh, I hate being triggered like this before my coffee - PhD + Stupid = steel plate in my head hurts.
If you are a food purist, the problem with this kind of labeling is that those terrible additives and preservatives will be an insignificant speck compared to the sugar and grain.
You know, if you make home made jam, you know exactly how much sugar goes in a sandwich spread compared to the fruit. And for good reason. It's a preservative.
The good doctor has his daily bowel movement timed to the nanosecond.
Freeman Hunt said...
You're not supposed to eat the entire jar in a sitting.
Don't judge me.
My guess is the reason it's being picked on has to do with those commercials from a few years ago - the ones where the "healthy" mom talks about what a good breakfast option it is when it's put on whole wheat toast. If memory serves, a woman sued them for misrepresenting their product as healthy. I'm not sure if she gained weight or finally realized it was her responsibility to read the nutritional information or what may have goaded her into such a course of action.
P.S. Nutella is delicious - so far, the tastiest way I've had it is in "pudgie pie" form - make a sandwich out of it, butter the outside, put it in a cast iron holder and cook it in a campfire - amazing!!!! But not for everyday :oP
It makes me no less likely to eat Nutella than I already was because I don't like it.
Somehow people have gotten the idea that Nutella is "supposed to be" nutritious -- presumably because it's spread on bread rather than eaten specifically as a dessert. But their marketing is general centered around, basically, "spread some Nutella on your healthy whole-wheat bread to make it taste good."
Relatedly, exactly how thick should the butter be that you spread on your breakfast roll? If you're my husband (presumably based on a European upbringing), very. Yes, it's fat, not the 2017 villain of sugar, but still masquerades as healthy because it's a "breakfast food."
I wonder how many people would be repelled by the Crisco label:
________________________________________
|...........................................................................|
|...........................................................................|
|...........................................................................|
|...........................................................................|
|...........................................................................|
|...........................................................................|
|...........................................................................|
|...........................................................................| FAT*
|...........................................................................|
|...........................................................................|
|...........................................................................|
|...........................................................................|
|...........................................................................|
|........................................................................ .| mono and diglycerides
|____________________________________ .| tert-Butylhydroquinone**
*Technically Palm Oil, Fully Hydrogenated Palm Oil and Soybean Oil
** And Citric Acid
What's next, THIS is what you're feeding your dog? (That would actually get people attention *rolls eyes*)
I take back the anti-Nutella post. Turns out they have switched to sustainable palm oil. There is a big of "snake oil" when it comes to sustainable palm oil, but it's better than nothing.
I will now start eating the same amount as I used to. :)
" No, the worst part about Nutella is the palm oil.'
Palm oil=coconut oil, they are quite often used interchangeably.
The family business on my mothers side, for 80-odd years, was coconuts. We had @2000 hectares or so in production at one time.
A huge industry in the Philippines, traditionally one of the top three exports.
And they use a heck of a lot of coconut oil in-country.
Your real problem is land clearance for agriculture. If they were planting corn in Borneo (which they could, just as well) you would have the same objection.
Fat is good.
Carbohydrates are bad.
Nutella is all carbs really.
But so are all sweets.
Generally speaking any food that doesn't need to be an acquired taste for the eater to enjoy is either fattening, carcinogenic or a contributor to cardio vascular disease. If you want to live longer, eat what you hate.
If this were disqus, I'd upvote cubanbob's comment.
Watching a Cow die and be gutted into food is not very appealing, but I like the end product.
The Dr. is against sugar, and this is a good thing. He's fighting a losing battle though. Worse than sugar, is sugar substitutes. Most of those are worse than sugar.
I can't stand the stuff, but I am almost willing to start eating it because of this asshole and those like him.
This is like people complaining about hot dogs, saying there are lips and assholes in hot dogs.
But maybe lips and assholes are actually the most delicious part of pigs?
What would a jam label look like.
Known Unknown said...
But maybe lips and assholes are actually the most delicious part of pigs?
You might wish the lips and assholes in your hot dog come from a pig, but you'll never really know...
@oleh A friend of mine told me that to make home made Jam/Jelly the ratio is 7:1 sugar to fruit. That's what your label would look like!
The question is would cannibals even try to eat this guy if they knew how thick his skull was.
The more you folks complain about ingredients portrayed as a picture the more sense it makes to me to do that... i think it would drive home which ingredients and the proportion of ingredients in a quick understand able way... nobody is trying to stop you from abusing yourself with food.. just make sure your insurance is paid when you come crying to the ER...
The jam label might look like this.
Your real problem is land clearance for agriculture.
Plant a windmill or cover the landscape with PV panels and receive a "get out of environmental disruption" free card.
Fat is good.
Carbohydrates are bad.
Nutella is all carbs really.
Dietary fat. Apparently, saturated/animal fat is a lower risk.
Carbohydrates are not bad per se, but their value is circumstantial (e.g. age, activity).
Nutella should be enjoyed... nay, relished in moderation.
Is this guy pushing for government action, or just passing along information?
Ah gee, I knew that palm oil (from Nigeria and elsewhere in West Africa) was a valued commodity during the British Empire days. But I thought that the saturated fat police had managed to eliminate its use in the modern world. Then I saw that there were palm oil tankers--so looked it up. Average American consumes 17 pounds of palm oil a year in one form or another--in food, in soap etc. Do I dare look at an Oreo cookie again?
Check out the rest of his twitter feed. He's one of those anti-sugar scolds, and almost all of his tweets are about that subject.
just make sure your insurance is paid when you come crying to the ER...
Whereas if we live the GWash way, we'll live forever and never have health problems.
Oh, wait...
Anti-Italian bias?
Interesting history: Its original name was SuperCrema.
In 1962, Italy passed a law banning names with superlatives (such as super-, ultra-, stra-) for consumer products. Ferrero had to choose a new brand name: "Nutella" registered in October 1963, came from merging the English word "nut", from the typically Italian ingredient hazelnut in the gianduja, with the Italian positive-sounding suffix "ella". The winning combination came with the colors: the black "N" and the other letters in red. The first jar came out on April 20, 1964, starting the Nutella era.
Original post deleted because I wrote "It's." That cannot stand.
I remember an article in National Review a long time go-the 90s-that said the reason people eat sugar, fat and salt is because they taste good. Nothing will separate us from our yummy food!
GWash said...
The more you folks complain about ingredients portrayed as a picture the more sense it makes to me to do that... i think it would drive home which ingredients and the proportion of ingredients in a quick understand able way... nobody is trying to stop you from abusing yourself with food.. just make sure your insurance is paid when you come crying to the ER...
8/31/17, 2:13 PM
Mumble mumble rape mumble something short skirts.
Nutella as an oral sex stimulant has already been covered, just smear it all over everywhere, now if we could only mix Nutella with a whole slab of Velveeta saturated with Mayo and bacon drippings, can anyone think how long it would take to lick all that off?
GWash @ 2:13 i think it would drive home which ingredients and the proportion of ingredients in a quick understand able way.
********************
Oh my, are you precious or what? Let me swig some Geritol before I try to explain to someone obviously young: once upon a time, there was NO nutritional information on food. When the gov't decided to put caloric and other information on everything, it was heralded as THE ANSWER to obesity. THE ANSWER I tell you - information will set us free from obesity!
And when THAT didn't work the gov't made restaurants do it too and when THAT didn't work they floated the idea of making the FONT of the calorie content BIGGER and when that didn't work...out came the tax schemes like taxing soda.
Being obese in and of itself is its OWN punishment. If that isn't enough, all the information, pictures and other info ain't going to do SHIT to make a dent in obesity. At one of my morning bus stops, a young woman boards the vehicle that is so fucking FAT the entire bus rocks with her every move. The bus actually leans a bit when she puts all her weight on that first step, and then "THUD THUD THUD" as she makes her way down the aisle. Every passenger either averts their eyes (please don't sit next to me please don't sit next to me....) OR stares her right down "don't you dare sit next to me...". She plants her ass into the biggest available space, usually causing the person she's sitting by to reconsider their seating arrangement, and they usually decide to stand rather than tolerate being enveloped in the fat rolls of a stranger.
Oh but I am SURE if you showed her deconstructed images of food, she'd lose all that weight. My god.
"The more you folks complain about ingredients portrayed as a picture the more sense it makes to me to do that..."
Agreed! These commenters are being contrarian almost for sport, IMO, and you are 1000% correct, GWash.
The picture is informative. I thought Nutella was a lot healthier than the picture indicates. I can accept the good doctor's warning with equanimity because Nutella is not one of those foods like BBQ that give meaning and significance to my life on earth. There are a surprising number of Nutella lovers here. I would have pegged Nutella as one of those foods that Hillary voters enjoy.
Why pick on Nutella? Why not answer the question in the tweet? It's a better question.
In one 2014 JAMA study, researchers found that those who consumed the highest amount of sugar — accounting for more than 21 percent of their totally daily calories —had double the heart disease death risk of people who took in 17 to 21 percent of their daily calories from the sweet stuff. This group in turn had a 38 percent higher risk of dying from cardiovascular disease compared to those who kept their sugar intake to 8 percent of their daily calories (The FDA says getting 10% of your daily calories from added sugar is a solid guideline).
I would enjoy hazelnut spread, mostly pure like good peanut butter. If I could afford it.
Because its surprising! Come on, lean into it! And while you're at it, why not lean into the Arpaio pardon?
Nutella is Nasty Stuff, so wouldn't enjoy it in any event.
I love the tweaking of the "Everything In Europe is Better" food snobs, though.
I think we could use more transparency in the processed foods that we buy. No need for this when it comes to fruits & vegetables. We already know they're healthy for us.
Why pick on Nutella?
Because somebody, somewhere, might be enjoying it.
Actually, I think this is a wonderful, innovative even, idea for nutritional labeling for several reasons. First, it is visual (most people do not READ nutritional labeling). Second, it is easy to understand. Third, it combines several dimensions of food composition into one presentation.
Will it affect food choices? No.
The French have been been printing pictures of various outcomes of smoking on tobacco and cigarette packaging for years. No impact on consumption (pun not intended). A pack of twenty cigarettes starts at eight (8) euros a pack (about the same for 40 grams of rolling tobacco). No impact on consumption. This year, ALL tobacco products must be sold in BLACK packaging with no visual brand information. The pictures of throat cancers and other complications of smoking remain. No impact on consumption.
I suppose similar imagery could be used in addition to representing visually ingredients. Why not pictures of rotten teeth, enormously overweight people, respirators, insulin pumps, gangrene, and other innovative photographic images to convey that overeating is dangerous. My favorite smoking complication image on French tobacco products is impotence: a couple sitting up in bed not looking at each other (we are to infer that they can no longer copulate). That MIGHT be a deterrent to the young about advanced type II diabetes.
I doubt it.
Besides, such marketing would employ more photographers, which is a good thing.
You know, you may be right. The people whom this appeals could likely already be very keyed into nutrition and nutritional stories. But there's another group, those who are the cusp of change (contemplatives, I think they're called - thinking of changing). But generally, you may be right, that this appeals to someone who already knows how damaging sugar can be. Still, I'd like to see some stats that something like this would definitely not affect food choices, and - what does affect food choices, from a health perspective (meaning the best strategies for getting people to eat less/no sugar). Part of me 'believes' that with all the education we've had lately mostly thanks to the internet, that large amounts of people are starting to get it. Yes, the money, advertising, and energy still lies with sugary products (ahem, for those of you tsk tsking things like this image), but we have GOT to be making some kind of headway. Right?
One of my favorite graphs (doesn't everyone have favorite graphs? No? You limit yourself to just one? OK.) Nutella Pie Chart (that's a link, didn't show up as one in the preview)
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