Pigeons in Rouen, France. Photo: Frédéric Bisson / Creative Commons.
On a boat trip up the Bosphorus last weekend, our crew of urban-dwellers practically capsized the ship by racing to one side to catch a glimpse of dolphins bobbing through the waves. The fleeting moment was all the more me...Read the full story on TreeHugger
Image: Glyme molecule
Glyme is a nickname for 1,2-dimethoxyethane, a solvent chemical in the glycol ether family. Glyme, and its close cousins diglyme, and ethylglyme, are suspected reproductive toxins. For example, monoglyme is officially required to carry the warnings "May impair fertility" and "May cause harm to the unborn child" on products sold in the European Union. 11 other substances in the glyme family are chemically similar, but hav...Read the full story on TreeHugger
My mornings often begin with a run along the Capital Crescent Trail in Bethesda, Md., and a visit to Quartermaine’s, a neighborhood hangout where the coffee’s great, the baristas are friendly and the pastries are tempting. Often, I yield to temptation. If Michael Jacobson of the Center for Science in the Public Interest had his way, they’d serve nothing but oatmeal with skim milk, no salt.
Last week, Jacobson assailed the Campbell Soup Co. after its new CEO, Denise Morrison, told investment analysts that the company “plans to bring back some higher-sodium soups after several years of working to reduce sodium, sometimes at the expense of taste,” according to the AP. Sales of the low-sodium soup were disappointing.
If Campbell has reason to believe consumers don’t like the taste of their products, why resort to salt? Why not improve their soups with more and better-quality vegetables and chicken, or with herbs and spices? I suppose that’s a question that answers itself, and the answer is money. Campbell enjoys a huge profit margin selling what are often basically overpriced disease-promoting cans of salt and water.
Yikes! This “public interest” advocate doesn’t think much of the public, does he, since, in his view, they are wasting their money on “overpriced disease-promoting cans of salt and water.”
His blast made news, as CSPI often does. More than 300 stories, according to Google News, like this one from ABC News.
So what’s wrong with this picture? A couple of things.
First, it reflects an unfortunate blurring of the lines between “corporate responsibility” and personal responsibility. Is Quartermaine’s responsible for my pastry consumption? Should Campbell limit its offerings to low-sodium soups if consumers don’t want them? What about Ben & Jerry’s? This isn’t to suggest that corporations don’t bear some responsibility for the obesity crisis–they do, as I’ll explain below–but as a society, we’ll never get people to take responsibility for their own health and well-being if we point the finger at others.
Second, it misunderstands the power of business. Assume Campbell decided to sell only low-sodium soups. (No more Chicken Noodle, with its whopping 890mg per serving. The FDA currently recommends no more than 2,300 mg — roughly a teaspoon — of salt per day.) Shoppers would simply turn to other brands–or buy a frozen pizza instead.
It should go without saying that companies can’t force us to buy stuff we don’t want. Power in the market belongs, for the most part, to buyers and not to sellers.
When they become buyers, companies like Campbell–as well as McDonald’s, Coca-Cola and PepsiCo.–can have a meaningful impact. They should be held accountable, not so much for what they sell, as for what they buy.
Here, as it happens, Campbell record is not too shabby. Outgoing CEO Douglas Conant told my GreenBiz colleague Heather King last spring that the company is “cutting the environmental footprint of [its] product portfolio in half” by working with farmers to better manage pesticides, improve yields and cut costs. The company is cutting water use and CO2 emissions per ton of product produced. Most of the company’s products, aside from tomatoes (about which more, another day), are locally farmed.
I called Dave Stangis, Campbell vice president of sustainability, to learn a bit more. He told me that Campbell has pledged to dramatically reduce its package and that he’d just come from a meeting with a cocoa supplier to the Pepperidge Farm brand, which is part of Campbell, where they’d talked about sustainable cocoa production. The company is working with all its farmer-suppliers to improve their environmental performance. “We teach them, and they teach us,” Dave says.
Does this get Campbell off the hook when it comes to salt and obesity. No–but it seems to me that, as a major food company (2010 revenues: $7.7 billion), Campbell ought to offer healthy options, if only to appeal to health-conscious shoppers. That it does. A Campbellexec told ABC News:
The company will extend its Healthy Request line from 25 soups to 33, all of which are reduced-sodium and carry the American Heart Association’s stamp of approval.
So what are the responsibilities of of a big food company, when it comes to obesity? First, and most important, be transparent. Second, offer a range of choices–which most do. Third, stop marketing unhealthy food to children. Fourth, think hard about the impact of portion size, and reduce portions if you can. Finally, if you are a food service company or retailer, as opposed to a manufacturer, try to nudge customers to choose healthier foods, as Sodexo and Bon Appetit have done. (See Where’s the Beef? Sodexo’s Meatless Mondays and The Low Carb(on) Diet.)
CSPI, to its credit, has put many of these issues on the national agenda. Its lab tests of the fat and calories in movie popcorn help me to resist that particular temptation. CSPI has also done a great job spotlighting excessive fat, calories and salt in restaurants like Ruby Tuesday and Uno Chicago Grill.
Having said that, obesity is really complicated. A variety of factors come into play–everything from the spread of video games to suburban neighborhoods without sidewalks to cutbacks in school gym and the crappy food served at school lunches. Brian Wansink, author of a book called Mindless Eating, has said we live in an obesogenic environment–one that promotes overeating in a variety of ways.
Such as saltier soups? Sure. But let’s keep things in perspective, folks.
Photo: pink.polka/Flickr
Here's one to file away under weird. Three little ladies in Midway, Georgia were enjoying their summer day selling lemonade when local police drove by and told them to close up shop. You'd think fresh outdoor air and the opportunity to bide summer's lazy days away from video games in a hyper air conditioned room was criminal...Or was it?...Read the full story on TreeHugger
Bahar Shahpar and Tara St. James of Guilded. Photo: courtesy Guilded
"The fashion industry needs a wake-up call," according to ethical fashion designers-turned-teachers Bahar Shahpar, of her eponymous label, and Tara St. James of Study NY.
After years working in the fashion industry and learning the destructive impact...Read the full story on TreeHugger
Photo: Daniel Morrison
It's one of those truths that you'd rather not know. That bright red, orange, and green gelatin you slurped down as a child is actually made from animals. Vegans avoid it like the plague because it's derived from the collagen in an animal's skin and bones. But what if it was made from humans? How d...Read the full story on TreeHugger
For retailers, it's the second "most wonderful time of the year" next to the holiday shopping season. That's why they're getting an early start.
Federal Reserve data show consumer debt has begun ticking up again after dropping during the recession. The company that measures credit risk attributes growing credit card debt to wealthier people spending more freely and to poorer people not paying their balances in full.
Photo: janoskpalko under a Creative Commons license.
Los Angeles has finally found a way to cut down traffic: terror. The announcement that ten miles of Interstate 405 would be shut down for 53 hours was accompanied by a public three month long awareness campaign to warn drivers to stay away from the major traffic artery. And so far (about halfway through the shut down), it looks like the threats of traffic even worse than usual have worked. Southern Californians are staying off the roads, and have avoid...Read the full story on TreeHugger
I am an eco entrepreneur, author, and admin here on People Planet Profit Blog. Let me know if you have any questions I am here to help. I’ll show you how to make a rewarding and profitable career in the Energy Industry... just contact me.
