Hitting The Brands

They're in business to make money and they don't care all that much how they do it, but they do squirm when their businesses' good names become besmirched by the charge that they're not behaving like good corporate citizens by selling garbage to kids. Which they've been doing for an awfully long time, without repercussions to either their bottom line or their reputations, until recently.

It has taken an obesity-among-kids revolution to turn the harshly-bright spotlight of public censure on purveyors of almost-food, designed to tempt kids' taste buds through the use of carefully researched chemical preparations. Nutrition? Well, it's food, it fills the gap to satisfy hunger, doesn't it? Some would say to excess. The tastebud-pleasing overuse of salt, sugar, and harmful fats have wrought their damage.

And look here: a children's advertising initiative brought forward from non-profit, self-regulating Advertising Standards Canada has extracted a shame-faced pledge from such food and beverage production and purveying giants as Kellogg Canada Inc., McDonald's Restaurants of Canada Ltd., Nestle Canada Inc., Cadbury Adams Canada Inc. and McCain Foods Canada to cease advertising to children under age 12.

Henceforth all such advertising will be directed to their time-strapped, menu-clueless parents instead. With childhood obesity tipping the scales of public opinion, something had to give. Society cannot, after all, presume to impose upon the producers of ersatz food products conditions that would demand they design better foods, without tampering with the nutritional essence of whole-food products.

No money to be made there. It's where scientific invention transforms ordinary whole foods into almost-food products that tantalize and tease taste-buds of people long unaccustomed to eating good, wholesome foods - where the money is made, hand over fist. Undiscriminating food consumers who can't remember what fresh fruits and vegetables, unadorned fish and poultry sans chemical additives taste like; don't know what to look for in any event.

We don't have the time nor the inclination, let alone the experience and the knowledge to prepare our food properly in the belief that it's too difficult, too time-consuming, too boring. What will actually be accomplished by having corporate brands agreeing to pull in their hefty advertising horns is a moot point. Children will no longer be entertained by cute cartoons extolling the taste virtues of the foods they represent.

Instead their parents will be targeted, and the same types of virtues enticing their children, like taste and texture that bears no resemblance to the food stuffs from which they're derived will win over their parents. Because there's no preparation time, they're convenient, won't spoil, and tempt corrupted palates.