The article states that:
The company also set two goals for the next 10 years: to cut the average added sugar per serving by 25 percent and saturated fat per serving by 15 percent, in addition to adding more whole grains, fruits, vegetables and low-fat dairy into its array of products.While it is nice to see more of a focus on sugar than on saturated fat, I would have preferred to see something like this:
The company also set two goals for the next 5 years: to cut the average added sugar per serving by 95 percent and increase saturated fat per serving by 50 percent, in addition to adding more vegetables and full-fat dairy into its array of products.What would happen? Well, Indra Nooyi is a very smart CEO, and the company has many competent people. They know that they would probably lose enough customers to go out of business … or become the Apple of their industry.
The bottom line is that, if you want to improve your health, you should generally avoid any food or liquid that is highly industrialized.
Maybe PepsiCo should add unprocessed coconut water to their portfolio of drinks.
I always like the timeframe these companies use, e.g. 5 years in this case. If the will was there, could these companies make these reductions to salt & sugar more sizeable and more rapid? You bet ya! But the bottom line is that if they did, it would so fundamentally alter the nature of the product that they would lose market share. I believe they will make very subtle changes... just enough to show they really do care about your health (noted sacrasm) but at a rate so as to allow palates to adjust. Just a big con and as you say, too little, too late.
ReplyDeleteThanks for commenting Jamie.
ReplyDeleteAnd if market forces, from people who are okay with being slowly poisoned, were not enough, there is also this type of stuff from prestigious media outlets like the BBC:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/8580899.stm
I have a post coming out shortly on this BBC article.