Tawdry Treats
The Internet isn't the only place where consumers are being bombarded by unexpected and unwanted gluttony
It seems even the most innocent of searches can lead you to be confronted by misleading, seedy items popping up on your Internet browser. The same sort of problem could also be occurring every time you enter a supermarket or local restaurant.
"Food Porn"- a label coined by the Center for Science in Public Interest, a leading consumer organization - to describe ultra-calorie or otherwise unhealthy entrees, desserts and drinks, from Starbucks' 620-calorie Salted Caramel Hot Chocolate to Chili's 1,590-calorie Chocolate Chip Paradise Pie.
"I think the items we choose deserve the name of food porn because they are bad -high in calories, artery clogging trans fats or saturated fats - or because they are bad foods masquerading as good foods that would really surprise people to know how bad they are," says Jayne Hurley, senior nutritionist at the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI), a Washington D.C. - based non profit that advocates for nutrition, health and food safety for the public.
CSPI's 900,000 circulation newsletter, Nutrition Action Healthletter features an unhealthy "Food Porn" dish compared to a healthy "Right Stuff" dish - a sort of nutritional yin and yang of the gastronomical choices available at restaurants and supermarkets across America.
Some of the revelations can be, well, hard to digest.
Dining in? According to Nutrition Action Healthletter, Boston's Market's frozen Home Style Meals Meatloaf with Homestyle Mashed Potatoes & Gravy, as well as the company's Salisbury Steak with Macaroni & Cheese made the "Food Porn" list with a day's worth of bad fat (about 18 grams) and 2,000 milligrams of sodium.
Eating out? Burger King's BK Stackers became a "Food Porn" with their Quad Stacker - 4 hamburger patties, 4 slices of cheese, 8 strips of bacon, plus sauce and bun. Says Nutrition Action: "That's half a day's calories (1,000), 1? days' worth of saturated fat (30 grams), 3 grams of trans fat, and more than a day's sodium for anyone 50 or over (1,800 milligrams)."
"The Nutrition Action newsletter does a very nice job of sensitizing people to how foods dressed up by industry to sound good for you may not be," says Dr. Kelly D. Brownell, director of the Rudd Center For Food Policy and Obesity at Yale University in New Haven, Conn. "As much as it draws attention to any single food, the newsletter teaches what to look for."
On the flip side, the "Right Stuff" highlights some good-for-you and good tasting foods that you may have otherwise overlooked, like Ore-Ida Steam 'n Mash Cut Sweet Potatoes (only 90 calories and 30 milligrams of sodium per cup); Quaker Simple Harvest Instant Multigrain Hot Cereal (150 to 160 calories, 4 grams of fiber, 75 to 90 milligrams of sodium; and Breyers Free Double Churn Ice Cream, a fat-free confection with 90 to 110 calories per half cup.
Surprisingly, Hurley says, she receives very little feedback from companies whose products are profiled. And just because a company ends up with a menu item or product in "Food Porn" doesn't mean they can't also be featured in "Right Stuff." After having their Salted Caramel Hot Chocolate (with more calories than a Big Mac) profiled as a "Food Porn" in January, 2008, a number of Starbucks' new breakfast items had the "Right Stuff" in November 2008.
"They got it right," Hurley says. "Starbucks launched Perfect Oatmeal (under 300 calories), Apple Bran Muffin (330 calories) and Chewy Fruit and Nut Bar (250 calories). I could not have enough good things to say about them." While she does her share of taste testing, Hurley keeps her mouth shut about future "Food Porn" candidates.
"I have to keep that top secret," she says. "I'm always on the lookout and unfortunately, I'll tell you, I have dozens of food porn candidates each month but the right stuff candidates are few and far between."
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