Advertising fast food to children

Leading fast food companies have pledged to follow specific advertising guidelines under the Children's Food and Beverage Advertising Initiative (CFBAI), a project of the Council of Better Business Bureaus (BBB).

These voluntary pledges remain quite weak. One recent summary of the argument that these pledges are insufficient [note: slight edit for clarity Apr 5] comes from the Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity at Yale University. The companies describe the pledges in shorthand, saying loosely that they now advertise only healthy food to children. In truth, more precisely, the companies still advertise both unhealthy and healthy food choices to children.

For example, a company pledge may claim to show only children's meals with comparatively healthy sides and beverages (such as apple slices and milk) and not less healthy options (such as french fries and sugary soda). Even with no further deception, the advertisements for the healthy meals help build brand awareness with children, increasing probability of generating a purchase occasion. Once the child and guardian are in the restaurant, the company heavily markets apple slices and french fries, milk and soda, whatever it takes to make the sale. The CFBAI guidelines address advertising on television and the web and do not prevent marketing of unhealthy options at the point of purchase, so the unhealthy options remain a large fraction of actual revenues for children's meals.

And, in any case, there is further deception. New research supported by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation finds that most children who view Burger King advertisements showing apple slices think the advertisement is showing french fries. The apple slices look like french fries, and the children overlook a small apple symbol on the package.

I do not believe the confusion is accidental. Reason Magazine's Hit and Run blog credulously accepts an account in which the children's misunderstanding merely shows that Burger King is effectively marketing apples by presenting them in an "apple fries" format, but that sounds like spin to me.

You can judge for yourself. Here is the actual video from the research team, led by James Sargent, MD, co-director Cancer Control Research Program at Norris Cotton Cancer Center. Ask yourself, is Burger King advertising only apples (as the company's CFBAI pledge claims), or is Burger King also in practice advertising french fries to children (in which case the company's CFBAI pledge is dishonest)?

I'm enough of an economist that a fast food company's marketing fails to outrage me. I expect Burger King to market burgers and fries as vigorously as it can, subject to the dual limitations of government rules and social norms. What bothers me instead is that organizations that purport to be independent referees serving the public interest -- such as CFBAI -- pretend that the fast food companies really have voluntarily ended their advertising of unhealthy food to children. It is admirable to seek market-oriented business-friendly solutions to social problems, but let's not deceive ourselves by claiming that marketing unhealthy food to children is a problem we already have under control.

Food policy advocates and "personal responsibility"

In an interview with Jayson Lusk, author of the Food Police, the Casual Kitchen blog today asks: 'Why is it that many food policy advocates strongly dislike the phrase "personal responsibility"?'

Jayson's answer, expressing a balanced sense of personal responsibility combined with awareness of environmental influences, is fine.  It is worth adding that many food policy advocates talk about "personal responsibility" all the time.  Just do a search for "Michelle Obama" and "personal responsibility."  You will find the topic thoroughly covered by the Cato Institute (an institution rarely accused of being part of the "Food Police"!).  You will find a lively discussion of how much the Obamas emphasize "personal responsibility" in tough non-pandering commencement speeches.  The Obamas' views, with a mix of personal responsibility and public purpose, sound a lot like Jayson's.

The Casual Kitchen, and Jayson too, can win arguments any time they like against the almost satirically narrow-minded caricature of the "Food Police" that they have set up.  But, perhaps it will become boring after a time to knock down row upon row of carnival dolls sitting on a shelf.  If so, they will want to engage in greater detail the issues that Michelle Obama raises in her speeches for the "Let's Move" campaign.  Here is a good speech to begin with.

McDonald's offers to make some alterations to beverages in children's Happy Meals by 2020

McDonald's this month announced at a White House event that it would make some changes to beverages marketed to children in Happy Meals.

The Alliance for a Healthier Generation, a project of the Clinton Foundation and the American Heart Association, praised the announcement warmly.  President Bill Clinton encouraged other companies to emulate McDonald's:

If we want to curb the catastrophic economic and health implications of obesity across the world, we need more companies to follow McDonald’s lead and to step up to the plate and make meaningful changes. I applaud them for doing it.

McDonald's appeared to say that sodas would be removed from Happy Meals.  A McDonald's ad (.pdf), and the press release from the Alliance for a Healthier Generation, both used the same language, saying that Happy Meals would:

Promote and market only water, milk, and juice as the beverage in Happy Meals on menu boards and in-store and external advertising.

That would be a big change if it were true.  But it appears not to be true.

As Marion Nestle and the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) later reported, McDonald's agreement with the Alliance for a Healthier Generation reads quite differently from the advertising copy and the Alliance's press release.  Instead of saying McDonald's would only "promote and market" healthy beverages on menu boards and in advertising, the agreement (.pdf) actually says McDonald's would only "feature" the comparatively healthy beverages.

The agreement explicitly adds that McDonald's may continue to put soft drinks on the Happy Meals section of menu boards.  In plain English, this contradicts the company's summary statement.  Moreover, a confusing sentence in the agreement appears to say that Fruitizz and Robinson's Fruit Shoot count as compliant with the "CGI commitment," which may indicate that sweetened fruit soft drinks will be treated as juice.  Finally, the commitment has a timeline that was not mentioned in the company's ad: it will apply to up to 50% of key markets within 3 years, and 100% of key markets by 2020 (and these key markets themselves represent 85% of all sales).

What lesson can we draw from this?

• If you think the marketing environment children face today is fine, and you don't believe any major change is needed, the small voluntary changes offered by McDonald's are satisfactory.
• If you want to see a substantial change in children's marketing environment, it is reasonable to think that these voluntary self-regulation initiatives are far too mild to make any difference, and that the government should take stronger action to protect our children.
• If you want to see a substantial change in children's marketing environment, but you are skeptical of government initiative to improve things, you should turn to one of the best private-sector tools for defending the consumer's interests -- you should speak up for yourself in every public forum you can.  Many sensible parents who prioritize their children's nutrition have simply concluded that nothing but grief comes from patronizing these quick service restaurant companies and their special meals targeting children.  Tell your friends and family what you are doing as a responsible parent in your own community.    

Consuming Kids Summit in Boston, March 21-23

For readers concerned about children's media and advertising issues:

Are you outraged by what’s marketed to children these days—junk toys, junk food, violent media, sexualized clothing? Do you believe it’s wrong that corporations have so much influence on children’s lives? Do you think children need more play time and less screen time? Do you want to do something about it?

Come to CCFC’s 8th annual Consuming Kids Summit in Boston on March 21-23. Learn. Network. Meet and mingle with today’s leading scholars, activists, and researchers—and people like you who believe that children should be nurtured, not manipulated for profit. Find out what you can do to stop the commercial exploitation of children.

This year’s summit features an amazing array of speakers, including many—like  advertising legend Alex Bogusky, the Praxis Project’s Makani Themba, and Melissa Wardy of Pigtail Pals and Ballcap Buddies—who will be presenting for the first time at a CCFC summit. We’re also thrilled to welcome back old friends like Tim Kasser, Nancy Carlsson-Paige, Diane Levin, and Michele Simon. Click here to learn more about our presenters and then don’t forget to register!

Colbert covers the VitaminWater lawsuit

In food advertising and labeling law, there is a concept called "puffery." It means advertising or labeling claims so outlandish that reasonable adults will recognize their falsehood.

You might think that health advocacy groups would use the word "puffery" as an insult when describing food company advertising. Not so.

Instead, it is the food companies who use the word "puffery" in legal briefs defending their own advertising. As in: "Sure, our advertising claim was false, but so what? Our claim was mere 'puffery.' We have no legal obligation to stand by its truth." I thought of this arcane field of puffery-related law while watching Colbert's coverage of the Coca-Cola VitaminWater lawsuit this week.

The Colbert Report
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POM Wonderful claims are false and misleading

An administrative judge for the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) concluded (.pdf) last week that POM Wonderful marketing claims about health benefits were "false and misleading."

For example, POM Wonderful advertisements imply that the juice protects against prostate cancer.  Could this be true?  POM Wonderful cited a study with some evidence that "PSA doubling time" -- a measure of prostate cancer's progress -- is slowed by drinking POM Wonderful.  Yet, truthfulness requires more than selective quotation from a favorable study.  In the FTC hearing, the balance of scientific evidence failed to support POM Wonderful's implied prostate cancer claim. 

POM Wonderful argued that some of its claims were merely puffery, not intended actually to convince grown-up consumers that the juice protects against cancer.  Yet, truthfulness does not permit the kindergarten defense: "Okay, I implied it, but I didn't really say it, so it's not a lie."

The administrative judge is correct to tar the claims as false and misleading.

What is the policy implication?  Some reasonable people would say the FTC should crack down on misleading health claims.  Other reasonable people would say "buyer beware," while maintaining that regulation will do little good.  In either case, let us all acknowledge that the claims are false and misleading.  There can be no defense of the claims themselves.

Or, so I thought.

POM Wonderful's response to the ruling this week has a breathtaking audacity.  I see today on the NYT website, POM Wonderful advertisements boasting of the FTC judge's ruling.  For the prostate issue above, here is the key quote in the POM Wonderful ad today:

“Competent and reliable scientific evidence supports the conclusion that the consumption of pomegranate juice and pomegranate extract supports prostate health, including by prolonging PSA doubling time in men with rising PSA after primary treatment for prostate cancer.”

– Judge Chappell, Chief Administrative Law Judge, FTC

In the Matter of POM Wonderful LLC, Initial Decision (5/17/2012), page 282

How is this possible?  Did the judge really endorse the very cancer-protective claim that POM Wonderful had implied?  Here is the full passage from page 282 of the judgment, with the sentences not quoted by POM Wonderful underlined.

Competent and reliable scientific evidence supports the conclusion that the consumption of pomegranate juice and pomegranate extract supports prostate health, including by prolonging PSA doubling time in men with rising PSA after primary treatment for prostate cancer.  However, the greater weight of the persuasive expert testimony shows that the evidence relied upon by Respondents is not adequate to substantiate claims that the POM Products treat, prevent, or reduce the risk of prostate cancer or that they are clinically proven to do so.  Indeed, the authors of the Pantuck Study and the Carducci Study each testified that their study did not conclude that POM Juice treats, prevents, or reduces the risk of prostate cancer.

Let anybody who was tempted to criticize the FTC or defend POM Wonderful read these two passages and evaluate for themselves the company's standard of honesty.

In my view, POM Wonderful is truly a bold titan of the dubious claims industry.

Update (1:45 pm): I just noticed that Marion Nestle also covered the NYT ads.  Soon perhaps POM Wonderful will quote Marion's sentence: "Fruit juices are healthy and especially delicious when fresh."  Of course, Marion goes on to say she doubts the cancer claims too.

Is reducing childhood obesity a reasonable goal?

Under the headline "Obama's Government vs. Your Family," John Hinderaker of the conservative blog Powerline this week links to our coverage of the interagency working group that proposed voluntary guidelines for marketing food to children.  Hinderaker is upset that Michelle Obama considers reducing childhood obesity to be a public policy objective.

So the future weight of your minor children is a “goal” of the federal government. Of course, that is just one example out of many. For example, do you think it is a “private family matter” whether you feed your children Cheerios and corn flakes for breakfast? Think again.

I am tempted to speculate that Hinderaker read some parts of my post more closely than others.  He probably best liked the part where I investigated some of the arcane details showing that Cheerios would not meet the long-run guidelines, which suggests that the details of the guidelines might deserve further tweaking.  Perhaps he focused less on some of the other good links in my post, which supported the interagency working group proposal and emphasized that this approach really is moderate, reasonable, and market-oriented.

Prevention Institute: "We're not buying it."

A video and petition from the Prevention Institute, about food marketing directed at children.

What foods fail to meet new voluntary standards for marketing to children?

In response to a request from Congress, a federal interagency group has proposed new voluntary standards for what foods can be marketed to children (.pdf).

A food industry campaign believes the voluntary standards will become essentially mandatory in practice, raising the industry's fears of regulatory overreach and loss of first amendment rights.  Other legal experts on public health law and policy emphasize that the proposed standards really are voluntary.  My own instinct is to see voluntary standards as a reasonable compromise between empty wishes for self-regulation and heavier mandatory regulation.  So I am tempted to see the industry's legal concern as overwrought.

But that still leaves open the question of whether the proposed nutrition standards are too weak, just right, or too strict.  Marion Nestle says her initial reaction was the the proposals were "much too generous."  The food industry's "sensible food policy" coalition says the proposed standards would prohibit marketing for nearly all commonly consumed foods.  In other words, the industry thinks the nutrition standards are too strict.

Now, here comes the arcane and detailed part of the post.  The industry group listed 100 commonly consumed foods (.pdf), and claimed only 12 of them met the standards.  The acceptable foods included fresh fruits and vegetables.  The industry group's table lists 100 comparatively broad food categories (column A), and then picks a particular food within each category (column B), and then in most cases claims that the particular food failed to meet the federal proposal's voluntary standards.  Some of the failures seem totally reasonable.  For example, nobody thinks donuts or cake should count as healthy foods.  But, the industry group claimed the standards also excluded popular and reasonably healthy foods.  For example, in the category of "all family cereal," the industry picked one particular cereal, and said it would be "banned" because it had too much sodium. 

At first, I suspected the group was cheating, by picking "column B" foods that did not really represent the broader "column A" food category, but I was mistaken.  I suspected the group of picking unusually unhealthy foods that failed the standards, just to make the standards look unreasonable.  However, after questioning a representative of the sensible food policy coalition by telephone today, and working through the details for the cereal example, I had to retreat a bit.  For example, unsweetened cheerios and corn flakes really do fail the proposed voluntary standards for sodium in the long run, even though one could argue that it is possible to have a bowl of cheerios every day and still meet the Dietary Guidelines recommendation for sodium (the cheerios provide 190 mg of sodium per serving, relative to the daily recommendation of 1,500 mg).  In the short run, the proposed rules would be more permissive, allowing cheerios for a few years.  The long-run voluntary standards use a fairly strict criteria that the marketed foods should qualify as "low sodium," which excludes cheerios.

For myself, I would have been happy if the proposed voluntary standards had allowed cheerios and ruled out highly sweetened cereal.  Perhaps the federal interagency working group was pushing the envelope on the details of the nutrition standards?

Generic advertising for fruits and vegetables

In light of the recent controversy over commodity checkoff advertising for cheese, some may wonder why there is no similar advertising for fruits and vegetables.

A recent working paper (.pdf) by a team of economists from Cornell and Arizona State uses a laboratory experiment to estimate the potential consumer response to several different fruits and vegetable advertising strategies.  The paper by Jura Liaukonyte, Bradley Rickard, Harry Kaiser, and Timothy Richards found, in this consumer laboratory setting, that broad-based advertising for the entire category of fruits and vegetables seemed more promising than separate advertisements for particular products.  Separate advertisements for each product could cannibalize each other.

An earlier study in Australia estimated positive impacts of a fruit and vegetable advertising campaign.  The authors concluded: "Sustained, well-executed social marketing is effective in improving nutrition knowledge, attitudes and consumption behaviour. The Go for 2&5 campaign provides guidance to future nutrition promotion through social marketing."

Bottled water links

From the Anti-Advertising agency blog, a link to a PSA-style graphic from Tappening, which also has a funny "Start A Lie" campaign. Slogan: "If they can lie, so can you."


Penn and Teller also have a bit of fun with this issue:



And Mother Jones this month hits hard on the latest fad for Fiji Water:

Obama sips it. Paris Hilton loves it. Mary J. Blige won't sing without it. How did a plastic water bottle, imported from a military dictatorship thousands of miles away, become the epitome of cool?

In the Mother Jones article, there is a cameo appearance by Lynda Resnick, a genius of trendy lefty New Age marketing who once showed up on this blog in a post about pseudo-scientific marketing of the powers of pomegranate juice.

Of course, the ultimate in ironic marketing is Tap'dNY, the company that bottles and sells New York City's lovely tap water. Here is the fabulous manifesto you never thought you'd see from a bottled water company:

"Oh, no!" says the broccoli ...

... "Secretary Vilsack loves cookies and not me!"


When I saw this in an email from agrarian writer Stephanie Ogburn, I thought it was Photoshop humor, but really it is from a USDA press release today.

The press release describes a new anti-obesity public service announcement featuring USDA Secretary Vilsack and Sesame Street characters.

Sesame Street came under fire from Commercial Alert in 2003 for its sponsorship from McDonald's, including a mini-advertisement adjacent to the public television show. Here is the current Sesame Street page thanking its sponsors, including McDonald's.

Question for the comments: do you think the cold shoulder for broccoli in the USDA photograph is an oversight or intentional non-verbal communication?

Update: a Facebook comment says, "hmm-- Kathleen showed this PSA at Mayoral Child Nutrition Summit today...the broccoli is portrayed very well in the spot...I think this is an oversight."

Restaurant industry astroturf

According to this Pollo Loco ad, this is genuine audio of KFC executives trying and failing to prank call a Pollo Loco telephone line.



I saw this on the Daily Bread food business blog.

Disney's food

Last week I posted Disney Eggs on Epicurean Ideal in response to Disney's new egg commercial.



Following correspondence from my favorite Food Sleuth & Dietitian, Melinda Hemmelgarn, the Disney food story began unfolding. Melinda works on media literacy issues, so I knew she was the perfect person to go to to get the 'dig.'

From a PR Associate at Disney:

Disney Eggs were introduced in March 2009 in 2 test markets initially (Florida and New York), and will launch in Colorado in April. Disney Food, a division of Disney Consumer Products, wanted to offer a "better for you" egg that was fun for families with children. Having the quality endorsement of Eggland's Best, with their all natural, all-vegetarian patented hen feed seemed like a great fit. The eggs are high quality-stamped with Disney characters and the collections of characters will rotate every month, to refresh the product.

The Disney Eggs product line consists of Large, Extra Large, 18-pack Large, Disney Cage Free and Disney Organic eggs. All the different versions are currently being offered and were presented to retailers in the 2 markets where the product was launched (Florida and New York). The retailers decide which and how many options they want to offer to their customer base, and currently retailers are only selling the #1 variety, which is Large, and no additional varieties at this time.

Eggland's Best patented hen feed contains healthy grains, canola oil, and an all-natural supplement of rice bran, alfalfa, sea kelp and Vitamin E. The Eggland’s Best hen feed contains no animal fat, no animal by-products, and no recycled or processed food. Eggland’s Best never uses hormones, steroids, or antibiotics of any kind. Eggland’s Best eggs contain ten times more Vitamin E than ordinary eggs, 100 mg of Omega 3, shown to be beneficial to cardiac health, 25% less Saturated Fat, and 200 mcg of Lutein, shown to contribute to eye health.

Kids will love the eggs because of the Disney characters, but parents will appreciate their nutritional value as well so it appeals to the entire family. In 2006, The Walt Disney Company introduced nutritious food guidelines limiting the use of the Disney name and its characters to only those kid-focused products that meet specific limits on calories, fat, saturated fat and sugar. Today, Disney’s extensive food portfolio offers nutritious options in key meal categories including fresh produce, bread, pasta, dairy and baked goods.

In response to the Eggs: I am unsure as to the point of feeding chickens vegetarian feed. Chickens are omnivores and eat insects, worms and vegetation. I guess if we are feeding cows corn we can feed chickens vegetarian feed. I'm just not sure of the marketing tactic. Who cares whether a chicken was a vegetarian or not, beside the ability of the industry to yield to specific product, as is the case with Eggland's Best. My next point is the marketing of "farm fresh." I hope consumers realize by now that this means nothing, much like "natural." However, "Naturally Raised," is a value adding marketing claim regulated by the Agriculture Marketing Service that

"applies to livestock used for meat and meat products that were raised entirely without growth promotants, antibiotics, and animal (mammalian, avian, and aquatic) by-products derived from the slaughter/harvest processes including meat and fat, animal waste materials (e.g., manure and litter), or aquatic byproducts (e.g., fishmeal and fish oil)."

One of the producers of Egglands Best eggs is Morning Fresh Farms which, by looks of their operations, is by no means a small family farm (although family owned). These types of tactics further the agrarian myth that people's food is coming from an idealistic farm with a red barn and roaming cattle. The egg industry is one that is very much industrialized no matter what certifications, claims and programs they put on the carton. Egglands Best does offer Organic and Cage Free Eggs, but I can't even find a picture of a chicken on their website. It reminds me of when I asked a student where hamburgers come from and he replied: "the grocery store." Do we want kids thinking eggs come from Mickey Mouse?

In response to Disney Food: Disney Consumer Products uses their classic Disney characters to market a full line of processed foods, including frozen and dried pastas, baked goods, snacks, novelties, dairy, confectionery, beverages and breakfast foods.

Disney Food, Health & Beauty takes an active role in the development and marketing of a diverse array of quality, innovative products that touch consumers' lives each day. Through new food licensing programs, product reformulations and relationships with leading manufacturers and retailers around the world, the Disney food group offers nutritious alternatives parents approve of and kids love.

Some of my favorites are Mickey Pizza's, Disney Campbell's Spaghetti O's, Disney's General Mills Cereals, and Disney Tummy Ticklers & Bellywashers (100% juice drinks).

While at first glance, it may seem that Disney is promoting healthier foods then the typical commercially processed and advertised foods, I side with Marion Nestle on the point that kids don't need special 'kid-friendly' foods to eat. Should we be inundating kids with more advertising? Campaign for a Commercial-free Childhood would say no. I would argue that this contributes to more disconnect between people and food culture.

Children's food and beverage initiative

The Children's Food and Beverage Advertising (CFBA) Initiative is a cornerstone of the industry's self-regulatory efforts.

About 15 companies have submitted voluntary pledges to the Initiative. Some major nonparticipants include Yum Brands (including Taco Bell and Pizza Hut) and Cadbury Schweppes (including soft drinks such as Dr. Pepper and Snapple). Because perhaps 1/3 of all food advertising is by nonparticipating companies, competitive pressure could harm companies that voluntarily try to make real substantial improvements.

The Initiative has fairly lenient minimum standards for the pledges, though some companies exceed the minimum standards voluntarily. The Initiative's standards say 50% of the company's "advertising aimed at children under 12 years of age" must "further the goal of promoting healthy dietary choices and healthy lifestyles." This standard can be achieved either by accompanying the marketing message with physical activity messages, or by advertising foods that qualify as "better for you."

It is not clear that physical activity advertising really counterbalances advertising for unhealthy foods. New research published last month in the journal Obesity found that activity messaging can have the paradoxical effect of increasing food consumption. People who see these messages seem to behave as if they were hungry after exercise ... but without the actual exercise.

The standards for foods that qualify as "better-for-you" frequently have an "either/or" character that makes them easy to meet. For example, a product can be low in sugar, or low in fat, or low in salt, but it need not meet all of these criteria together. Foods on the list of "better-for-you" items that pass muster with the Initiative include: Lunchables Max’d Out Pepperoni Pizza, Cap'n Crunch, and Gatorade Thirst Quenchers (which are said to be "better-for-you" despite getting all their calories from sugar because they provide a rehydration benefit).

The companies choose their own standards for defining "advertising toward children under age 12." Here are some examples from my recent review:

Only two pledges use the same standard as the 2008 FTC report, which stipulated settings where more than 30% of the audience is children under the age of 12 years. Some pledges use a lenient standard of 50% of the audience. The definitions in other pledges are so imprecise and complex that it is difficult to determine what advertising is covered. The Campbell Soup Company proposed the following standard: “audience composition that is approximately two times the proportion of that age group in the general population (composition index of 200 or more)”. Pepsico listed five different non-quantitative factors, specifying “none of which shall be controlling."

Self-regulation of food marketing to children

Food and beverage industry self-regulation is commonly seen as mere window dressing for doing nothing about intense food and beverage marketing to children in the midst of an epidemic of childhood obesity.

Yet, many economists support government interventions to address the problem only if they are narrowly tailored to solve "market failures" -- situations where the market system fails to serve the public interest. If the market's own response suffices, it may be preferable to the government response.

And, many legal experts like restrictions on advertising only if the restrictions are narrowly tailored to be "no more extensive than necessary."

Of course, companies themselves prefer self-regulation.

With these multiple sources of support, the federal government has determined to attempt a period of self-regulation.

The questions that interest me most are: (1) how will this period of self-regulation be evaluated?; and (2) if the self-regulation fails, will the economists and legal experts follow the logic of their own arguments and support a stronger government response?

My longer version of this discussion has just been published in Nutrition Reviews (contact me by email if your library lacks access).

Truth in advertising

If this blog ever sounds a note of outrage over lies and near lies in commercial food marketing -- like when a cereal company puts "fruity" in the product name for sugary junk that has no fruit -- then you can remind me of this story. I got home the other night to find my children gobbling up some delicious soup my wife Sarah had made. "What's in it," I asked, pulling up a chair? "Potatoes," say the kids. "Chickpeas," says Sarah. "Really?," says my son. "Well," Sarah says, "chickpeas and a little potato. I mean, I didn't really say it was all potatoes. I just called it potato soup."

Cheetos ad and post on boingboing

Open comments. Here is an ad and post for Cheetos on one of my favorite blogs -- boingboing. What do you think?

The King Corn guys spoof HFCS ads

Have you seen the corn refiners' ads defending high fructose corn syrup (HFCS) from its critics? Then you may enjoy the spoof by Ian and Curt, the guys from King Corn (reviewed earlier on this blog).