http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/05/business/05smart.html?_r=1
The food industry has implemented a campaign called Smart Choices, which purports to be “designed to help shoppers easily identify smarter food and beverage choices.”
Some of the items earning the big green checkmark so far... Fruit Loops and Cocoa Krispies. Maybe they thought shoppers were having trouble finding items loaded with sugar and salt?
In my opinion, this sleazy campaign is without credibility. If you want to make smart food choices, read the ingredients yourself. If you don't think the food industry is trying to manipulate you, and that they aren't succeeding, check out "The End of Overeating," by David Kessler.
UPDATE: By Christmas 2009, things has changed for the better. Quoting change.org,
"The food industry launched a new nutrition labeling scheme this fall called Smart Choices, hoping to sell more highly processed foods such as Froot Loops by marking them as “healthy” based on their fortified nutrients. This would have been an easily dismissible marketing tactic except that researchers associated with several prominent nonprofits – including the American Diabetes and Dietetic Associations and the Tufts School of Nutrition – were members of the Smart Choices board and giving the program false legitimacy. Thousands of Change.org members responded by calling on these three nonprofits to disassociate themselves from the marketing scheme. Two days later all three organizations responded by publicly denouncing the Smart Choices initiative, dealing a significant blow to the program’s claim to legitimacy. Within a few weeks the deceptive multi-million dollar initiative was suspended, giving the public a rare and important victory over the sort of deceptive food marketing that has contributed to America’s obesity epidemic."
