Froot Loops in Flames
Pulling out the pitchfork on Food Firms & Instagram Influencers
I swung open the pale wooden pantry door in my girlfriend’s parent’s kitchen.
Are those Froot Loops? I asked.
Sitting boxless in a clear plastic bag, they looked like the Froot Loops I remembered from childhood. Except they had a darker hue as if someone, during production, spilt a bottle of black food colouring into them.
Yeah, they’re Froot Loops. My sister bought them when she was home last week.
Why do they look like that?
A few years ago they started using natural instead of artificial colouring.
Like a quarterback who threw a pass two feet too far, my girlfriend, realizing her mistake, tried to claw back the words as they left her mouth.
For the next ten minutes, I ranted as she rolled her eyes, tired of being the audience of one to my TED Talks on nutrition and the sinister marketing tactics of food companies.
Kudos to my girlfriend for listening, I unearthed an idea to write about this week.
I don’t think anyone — me at the tippity top of that list — has a completely healthy relationship with food.
It’s complicated.
We need food to survive. But we also use it to celebrate, socialize, mourn, and entertain. And sometimes we eat to cure boredom and alleviate stress.
Layer our already complicated relationship with food onto Froot Loops trying to convince you that their sugar circles are healthier because they’re naturally coloured.
Then add a sprinkle of Internet influencers telling you “Vegetables are toxic!” or “Veganism is the key to longevity!” or “Our ancestors ate organ meat so we should survive solely off cow liver!” and you have the hellscape that is modern nutrition.
So they can fit their tips into inciting 30-second Instagram Reels, charlatans simplify nutrition into tribal beliefs where one thing is good and everything else is bad. And food firms plaster misleading marketing on everything from cereal boxes to bread bags.
When I encounter grandiose assertions in grocery stores and online, I pull out my three-pronged pitchfork: three ideas that poke gaping holes in suspicious nutrition claims.
They’ll help you cut through BS branding and bold overstatements — whether it’s on a box, bag, can, or an online claim — so your food choices aren’t dictated by someone who gets paid to influence you.
The dose makes the poison
Late last summer, two daughters lost their mother and a father lost his wife.
In 2020, almost to the day, an 11-year-old boy named Zach died from the same cause.
Nearly twenty years ago Matthew, a university student, died during a fraternity hazing ritual.
Their killer? Water.
The same water Huberman tells you to drink took the lives of these poor young souls.
Drinking too much water can cause water intoxication which disturbs the body’s electrolyte balance and can lead to death. Water, like any other substance, is a poison when consumed in high enough doses over a short enough period.
The Lesson: Things that are essential, healthy, or protective in certain doses can be unhealthy or even fatal in higher doses.
The dose makes the poison.
Yet influencers make bold claims like plants contain “defense chemicals” that are “toxic” while failing to mention the dose at which they become toxic.
If plants are toxic, which is a matter of tribal debate I don’t care to dip my toes into, shouldn’t the first question we ask be at what dose they become harmful?
And wouldn't it be possible that, like water, doses below a toxic amount are beneficial or protective?1
Artificial doesn’t mean bad. Natural doesn’t mean good.
Froot Loops boldly claim “No Artificial Flavours or Colours” as if the source of food colouring would make a substantial difference on the health impact of eating their product.
It’s possible that, in an isolated comparison, the new natural flavouring in Froot Loops is healthier than the previously used artificial one.
But plastering the lack of artificial ingredients on the box is a smoke and mirrors trick to convince you to put them in your cart before flipping the box around and realizing that, regardless of how the cereal is coloured, it’s still a carbohydrate bomb coated in sugar.
The Lesson: Don’t associate Natural with healthy and Artificial with unhealthy.
Unless you know the specific ingredients used and how they interact with your body, it’s a massive oversimplification to assume that Natural = good and Artificial = bad.
Natural might be better than artificial, but not always.
Take diet versus sugar-containing soda. While the sweetener in most diet soda is artificial (aspartame), you’re much better off drinking Diet Coke than downing 33 grams of liquid sugar — no matter how natural it may be — which will send your blood sugar and subsequent insulin response soaring.
Pro Tip: If a brand makes the effort to self-proclaim that its product is natural rather than artificial, it’s probably worth avoiding entirely.
Ask, “Why are they trying to appear healthy?”
A kind person doesn’t stroll down the sidewalk announcing how kind they are. They behave kindly and humbly gain a reputation for being kind.
Similarly, broccoli and chicken don’t get together to put on commercials claiming how healthy they are. Nor do almonds and walnuts.
They don’t need to.
When a product tries to appear healthy, like a pickpocket distracting you over here while sliding your wristwatch off the other hand, it’s time to look behind the branding.
The Lesson: Use macronutrients as your primary gauge and micronutrients as your secondary gauge in determining the health status of a product.
The more a brand boasts its health status, whether they sell Athletic Greens (AG1), kombucha, protein bars, or cereal, the more important it is for you to peek behind the branding to see if what you’re consuming is as good as they claim.
“Kellogg's Froot Loops breakfast cereal is fortified with 11 essential vitamins and minerals and is low in fat.”
A cereal company boasting low-fat content in its cereal is like a city bragging about low arsenic content in its water. Cereal is made of grain, corn, wheat, or rice. All of which are carbs. You’d have to add fat for cereal to contain it.
And it’s only fortified with vitamins and minerals to lengthen the Nutrition Facts label and distract you from what the product really is: carbs high in sugar.
If you liked this post, I think you’ll enjoy In food marketing, lies kill:
Thanks to Jeremy Scharf's Newsletter for your incredibly helpful edits on the initial drafts of this post.
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Lots of love,
Jack
The people on the Internet I find trustworthy (Peter Attia, Rhonda Patrick, Layne Norton, etc.) support vegetable consumption. I eat veggies every day and it seems advisable for most people to do the same.
Jack, my relationship with food is indeed complicated. These perspectives are super insightful and will provide an assist in that complication! This essay totally reinforces the name of your Substack and is of service to us readers. 🙏
Me clicking in to this article while eating Froot Loops. 👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀