Monday, October 1, 2007

Eating Liberally Food For Thought: Coke & Pepsi

MUST COKE AND PEPSI KEEP STEEPING OUR KIDS IN SALT & SUGAR?

By Kerry Trueman, Eating Liberally

Now that soda’s been exiled from school vending machines, the beverage industry’s angling to replace that lost revenue with sports drinks like Gatorade and “enhanced” VitaminWater. Pepsi and Coca-Cola, the companies who make these drinks, have spent a fortune hyping them as “healthy,” but public health advocates say their high fructose corn syrup and sodium content ought to disqualify them for a slot in the vending machines.
A billion-dollar battle is brewing over the fight to get these fizz-free pseudo sodas out of our schools, as the Washington Post reported Wednesday. Senator Tom Harkin’s attempt to pass a bill that would raise the nutritional standards of the foods and drinks sold in our schools is running into fierce opposition from food and drink manufacturers whose fortunes rest on a foundation of high fructose corn syrup and sodium.
The beverage lobby insists that these drinks are being attacked unfairly. One beverage industry spokesman told the Washington Post:

“These drinks are low in calories and the portion sizes are capped…They have benefits to the student. Where you have students competing in athletics throughout the day, it’s an essential beverage to make available. These are very reasonable, common-sense things.”

So, where, exactly, do you have students “competing in athletics throughout the day”? As far as I can tell, the average American kid is only marginally more active than a factory farm cow. And second, the only essential beverage to make available is water, pure and simple. Only a serious athlete in intensive training even has to worry about losing significant electrolytes, which, by the way, are easily replenished by eating, say, a carrot or an apple.
As Marion Nestle notes in What to Eat, “Gatorade is a salt-supplemented sugar drink, but with fewer sugars and calories than a regular soft drink.” Is it better for you? In some ways, it may be worse; according to the Washington Post, a 12-ounce bottle of Gatorade Rain contains 165 milligrams of sodium, more than triple the amount of sodium in a can of Coke (52 milligrams.)
So, what’s the big deal about a little extra salt? Well, according to the Center for Science in the Public Interest, salt is “probably the single the most dangerous ingredient in our food supply.” Excessive sodium intake leads to high blood pressure, heart disease and stroke. The National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute estimates that “cutting the amount of sodium in packaged and restaurant foods by half would save 150,000 lives a year.”
But American taste buds have been trained to expect, and welcome, an incredibly high level of salt and sugar in almost everything we eat. Our palates have been so warped by processed foods that things just don’t taste “right” unless they’re sufficiently salty or sweet. And that’s why it’s now possible to consume your entire daily allowance of sodium at one meal-in one dish, even–at many restaurants.
The CSPI has been after the FDA for years to reclassify salt as a food additive and regulate its use; currently, it’s classified as GRAS, or “generally recognized as safe.” But it’s not safe in the quantities that food manufacturers rely on to improve the taste of processed foods that would otherwise be unpalatable.
So now our kids are so used to salty, sugary, fatty foods that unadulterated “real” foods, i.e. fruits and vegetables, just don’t taste good to them.
Senator Harkin told the Washington Post he wants to get sports drinks and sugary waters banned from our schools:

“Our most recognized national health watchdog — the Institute of Medicine — said sports drinks are equivalent to flavored water, noting their high sugar content…If the beverage industry is serious about the health of our kids, as it repeatedly claims to be, science and sound health should be the guiding principle.”

But of course, the beverage industry’s true obligation is to its shareholders, not our nation’s children. And that’s the billion dollar question: can we have healthy corporations and healthy kids?