William Neuman, “For Your Health, Froot Loops,” The New York Times, September 5, 2009

This article examines a new food-labeling campaign called the Smart Choices Program™, which uses the government dietary guidelines to identify “smarter food and beverage choices” for consumers. According to reporter William Neuman, the industry-backed system has apparently provoked the ire of some nutritionists who question the use of the green checkmark on “sugar-laden cereals like Cocoa Krispies and Froot Loops.” The Food and Drug Administration and U.S. Department of Agriculture have also warned the program’s managers that the agencies will be monitoring the results to see whether the labels “had the effect of encouraging consumers to choose highly processed food and refined grains instead of fruits, vegetables and whole grains.” “What we don’t want to do is have front-of-package information that in any way is based on cherry-picking the good and not disclosing the components of a product that may be less good,” one senior FDA advisor was
quoted as saying.

Meanwhile, the Smart Choices Board of Directors has reportedly defended the products endorsed by the program, noting that even sweet cereals might be better than other things parents could choose for their children. “The checkmark means the food item is a ‘better for you’ product, as opposed to having an X on it saying ‘Don’t eat this’,” board president Eileen Kennedy told Neuman. “Consumers are smart enough to deduce that if it doesn’t have the checkmark, by implication it’s not a ‘better for you’ product. They want to have a choice. They don’t want to be told ‘You must do this.’”