Ensure Drink: Sugary Fake Food Pseudo-Wonder Tonic by Vicodin Maker

Meet Ensure "nutrition shakes," one of the most spectacularly selling fake foods in America. $1 billion in sales in 2009, and growing. 

Bought by seniors in the millions as meal replacements. Used to supplement the diets of picky children. Hawked as a solution to build muscles, meet nutritional needs, fortify calcium, restore vigor, aid recovery from illness and surgery. 

The sapphire-and-navy plastic 8-oz bottle of vanilla Ensure Nutrition Shake (which retails for an exorbitant $1.33 per bottle!) here on my desk lures on the label:

• complete, balanced nutrition
• to help get strong on the inside
• #1 doctor recommended brand

"Ready to take charge of your health? Check out how Ensure ready-to-drink shakes and drinks can help you reach your goal," exhorts Abbott Nutrition, part of Big Pharma corporate giant Abbott Laboratories on their website. (Abbott Labs, the maker of addictive painkiller Vicodin and dozens of other highly profitable drugs...)

Problem is...

Frozen Waffles: Folly, Fun and Fake Food Ingredients

I get it. I get why health-conscious Americans sometimes serve fake food at home. I get it, because I did it.

I confess: I served frozen generic toaster waffles to our two young grandchildren for breakfast last weekend slathered, ironically,  with trans-fat free yogurt-based spread and USDA-certified organic maple agave syrup blend. 
An industrial-manufactured fake food of the first order doused in pretentious products of smug Whole Foods purists.

Frozen waffles doused and drenched but not disguised. Our seven-year-old pronounced them  "Awesome. Really awesome!"

My excuse? I was in a hurry at the market, and besides, I knew the kids couldn't wait the time it takes to properly mix and make waffles from scratch. They have fun things to do, favorite places to go, and they'd be hungry. 

At the market, I hid the frozen waffle box, fearing disapproval of fellow shoppers. What if I ran into friends or neighbors? What would they think?  That I feed fake industrial-made foods to my family? That I secretly binge on fake foods? They know I blog to expose the worst of modern industrial fake foods. Will they brand me a health hypocrite? 

Embarrassed, I slid the bright gold box under a sheath of red-leaf romaine lettuce, heirloom tomatoes, organic apricot-plum hybrids, and a loaf of cracked wheat sunflower-seed dill bread in an artisan-baker bag made of crinkly recycled paper.  I made it home, my food crime undetected. 

U.S. Food Supply Injures More Americans than Gun Violence Each Year

It's puzzling: Colorado-grown cantaloupes killed  more innocents in 2011 than did the recent murderous shooting-spree in a Colorado movie theater, yet no one seems to give a damn. 

Each year, preventable foodborne illness strikes 48 million Americans, hospitalizing a hundred thousand and killing thousands. Each year! 

 In 2011, 36 people died because they ate cantaloupe grown at Jensen Farms in Holly, Colorado. The melons were bought at WalMart, Krogers and other trusted neighborhood grocers.

Cantaloupes that looked, felt, and smelled ripe and healthy. Cantaloupes that were infected, though, with deadly Listeria bacteria. Infected cantaloupes that should have been detected by internal, third-party, or FDA-mandated inspections.    CNN investigated for months:

"... CNN has found serious gaps in the federal food safety net meant to protect American consumers of fresh produce, a system that results in few or no government inspections of farms and with only voluntary guidelines of how fresh produce can be kept safe...

" The 2011 listeriosis outbreak... should not have happened, and it could have been prevented, according to numerous food safety experts and federal health officials.

 "... the story of what happened at Jensen Farms, and why no one stopped the sale and shipments of the cantaloupes... sheds light on serious problems in the nation's fresh produce food safety net, and a voluntary system created by businesses to ensure a quality product, known as third-party audits."

In all, 36 men, women and children suffered painful deaths and 146 others became quite ill because inspection procedures failed to detect  poisoned cantaloupes sold in U.S. supermarkets in May, June and July 2011. 

Tragically, this massacre is not an isolated incident in U.S. modern industrialized food:  

Gigantic-Portion Restaurants: Corporate Profits at What Public Cost?

Decadent, monstrous-sized servings were first a 1970s fad among restaurants, designed to entice and entertain Americans with chocolate cake slices the size of a human head, mountains of golden french fries, and burgers stacked taller than a small pet.  It was great, unexpected fun 40 years ago. 

In 2012, rage-against-the-nutrition-machine propels Americans to eateries that serve gigantic portions of deeply satisfying comfort-food chocked with fats, sugars, and forbidden carbs.  Rebelling against the nanny state never felt so freeing or acceptably naughty. 

Problem is... these eateries do it solely for the profit. And just like Big Tobacco, they don't give a damn about your health or public health. Or the health of our great nation. 

Heart Attack Restaurants
The infamous Heart Attack Grill, now in Las Vegas, is an easy nutritional target, with its Quadruple Bypass Burgers (up to 8,000 calories), all-you-can-eat Flatliner Friers (fried in lard), and Butter-Fat Shakes (triple butterfat in strawberry, chocolate, vanilla). Click here for a YouTube of a guy eating the butter pooled in a butterfat shake.  

The Coconut Water Fad: Hucksterism, Health Elixir or Quasi Fraud?

Coconut water is one of the hottest health food trends, with more than $400 million in U.S. sales in 2011. Sales have doubled each year since, 2005, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Touted by Barbados-born rock-star Rihanna, endorsed by baseball superstars Josh Hamilton and Dustin Pedroia and world surfing champ Kelly Slater, invested in by film stars Demi Moore and Matthew McConaughey, TV star Kelly Ripa, and supermodel Gisele Bundchen ... the modern industrial beverage industry is banking heavily on coconut water as the next big profit-rich thing. 

But is coconut water the perfect-food elixir touted by its celebrity backers, or the newest blip in health food hucksterism? Or are boasts about coconut water the stuff of quasi-fraud baloney, like past food-fads acai berry and raspberry ketones? 

(Read HERE for Raspberry Ketones: Another Industrial Food Quasi-Scam?)

I recently bought a plethora of coconut water products and brands in cans, bottles, boxes... and my appraisal of the lot brought more questions than answers, and found more clever ambiguities and suspiciously slick marketing ploys than clear or verifiable facts.

And despite adorable "cute discovery" stories on the websites of entrepreneurs of these home-grown enterprises, I uncovered deep-pocketed connections to the largest U.S. industrial beverage corporations. Connections not revealed to the consumer on lushly alluring but largely fact-free packaging or on corporate websites. 

Silly Food Fascism: Big Gulp Not Part of Big Apple Soft Drink Ban

Hypocrisy, thy name is Food Fascism in 2012.

New York Mayor Bloomberg's edict banning large-size soft drinks is a classic case of arbitrary bureaucratic silliness, and of health-conscious thinking gone inconsistently awry. 

The Mayor wants to make it a minor crime for restaurants,  theaters, sports venues, fast-food purveyors, even food carts and kiosks to sell sugar-laced drinks... soft drinks, sports and energy beverages... in containers larger than 16 ounces. 

But Mr. Bloomberg provides a plethora of bewildering exceptions, including: 

Contaminated Meats in Grocery Markets Grow Due to Gag Laws

The beef, pork, and poultry you buy at the market is more likely from a diseased animal because of laws in five states severely restricting free speech about meat-industry factory farms. 

Iowa, Utah, North Dakota, Montana, and Kansas legislatures have all passed "ag-gag laws," a moniker earned because of extreme pressure from agriculture industry ("Big Ag") lobbyists to pass such statutes. 

And Big Ag, via politicians receiving Big Ag donations, has proposed ag-gag laws in more states, including Missouri, Minnesota, Nebraska, Indiana, Tennessee, Florida, Illinois and New York. 

State ag-gag laws and penalties vary, but per Food Safety News, mandate:

"In North Dakota, it is a class B misdemeanor to enter an animal facility and use or attempt to use a camera, video recorder, or any other video or audio recording device... Violators face jail terms of 30 days." 

Raspberry Ketones: Another Industrial Food Quasi-Scam?

Raspberry ketones are the newest miracle-food fad, and the industrial food world is gearing up to make millions by hawking it to you. 

The question is: are raspberry ketones just another health food quasi-scam, or is it really "the No. 1 miracle in a bottle to burn your fat" per Dr. Mehmet Oz?

The Rise and Fall of Acai Berry
Remember acai berry, the ultra-hyped extract of a violet-hued berry from a Brazilian palm species? Marketers claimed that acai's antioxidants provided a near-endless plethora of wellness benefits including: 

• weight loss
• anti-aging properties
• lowered cholesterol and triglycerides
• killing cancer cells
• possible reversal of diabetes  

KFC, Jack-in-Box, McDonald's: Legal Deception on "Healthy" Choices

We're livid when car dealers attempt to lure us with bait-and-switch scams. We speak our minds forcefully when we get suckered into any fraud, major or miniscule, be it from useless coupons or crummy products to services that don't deliver.

Sears was actually forced by the FTC, in 1974, to "cease and desist" using  deceptive tactics to draw customers into stores, then "switch their focus to products other than the advertised bargains." For the sake of sales and profits, of course. 

So why, then, do we allow fast food mega-corporations to deliberately fool us with the specter of fresh, healthy salads, when most of their mouth-watering "salad" concoctions are among the highest-calorie, saltiest, least healthy menu items? 

Make no mistake: their ruse is long-pondered, finely-plotted corporate-level sales strategy. 

Busy, beleaguered parents or grandparents of young kids are far more likely to order from McDonald's, Arby's Taco Bell, Jack-in-the-Box, KFC, and the like if they can order healthier for themselves. Or believe they are ordering healthier... The reality is jarring:

McDonald's Burgers, Fries Served at 22 U.S. Hospitals, Doctors Demand Removal

Grab a Big Mac, large fries, and Coke as you exit a hospital after a heart attack scare? After all, you're exhausted and in a hurry, detest bland hospital fare... and what the heck, you deserve a break today, to use McDonald's famed slogan.

Fantasy, right? The same medical professionals who bother you mercilessly about your all-American taste-buds wouldn't dare plop forbidden (but ferociously profitable) fast-food on hospital premises, right?

Believe it or not, wrong. Twenty-two U.S. hospitals and medical centers... including the esteemed Cleveland Clinic in Ohio, the Naval Medical Center in San Diego, and Texas Children's Hospital in Houston... permit full-service McDonald's stores on hospital premises. 

Fast Food Purposely Saltier in U.S. to Boost Sales

The purpose of industrial food corporations is to make profits from hawking edible products. Period. 

Health and public good are irrelevant concepts to this singular goal... unless hefty sales will result, of course.

In U.S. fast food, the lure to reeling in rich profits is salt. Loads and loads of salt. As much as it takes to ensure big bonuses for fast food executives. Sort of like using special lures to bait fish... 

Pizzas, burgers, fries, breakfast concoctions, even salads served in the United States are intentionally loaded with more salt than that sold by the same fast food companies in Great Britain, Australia, Canada and often France and New Zealand, per the Canadian Medical Association Journal (CMAJ).

This week, the CMAJ released results of their salt comparisons in 2,124 fast food samples:

Brouhaha in a Strawberry Frappuccino: Starbucks Tries to Get It Right But Falters

Give credit where credit is due: Starbucks tried to get it right. The Seattle-based coffee purveyor tried to avoid using fake-food chemical dyes in half a dozen delicious pink-to-red edibles. 

But Starbucks didn't foresee the public recoil as fans become increasingly educated about "natural" ingredients. 

The brouhaha started last month when an upset vegan-eating barista emailed a photo of Starbucks' strawberry flavoring label to website ThisDishIsVegetarian.com.

Included in the label's ingredients is cochineal extract, a natural-based dye commonly "used to produce a range of scarlet, red, pink and orange hues" in food, cosmetics, and textiles.

The problem is the origins of cochineal extract:  a tiny, cactus-dwelling insect hand-collected mainly in Peru.

Americans Reject Pink Slime Beef, But Six Politicians Still Push It

Taco Bell, McDonald's, and Burger King dumped beef with pink slime, Play Doh-look-alike filler last December after chef Jamie Oliver exposed the ammonia-treated goop on TV a few months earlier.

Safeway, Albertson's, Super-Valu, Kroger, Winn-Dixie, Stop & Shop, Wegmans, Target, and other large grocery chains are dropping slime-filled ground beef in response to consumer demands. Walmart will offer consumers clearly labeled choices. 

Yet the USDA continues to stand by its "7 million-pound order of connective tissue and beef scraps doused in ammonia, set to hit school lunch trays in coming months" which it hilariously allows the meat industry to deceptively dub "lean, finely textured beef." 

Six politicians... five governors from farm states and the lobbyist-beholden head of the U.S. Agriculture Department... persist in urging Americans to ignore what Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad calls "an unwarranted, unmerited food scare."  The politicians pushing the pink-slime concoction that was previously reserved for dog food are:

Meat Lobbyists Angered by "Hot Dogs Cause Butt Cancer" Billboard

Chicago commuters were greeted this week by a billboard shrilly proclaiming "Hot Dogs Cause Butt Cancer." 

The sign, located on the busy Eisenhower Expressway, is sponsored by longtime health activist group Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, led by Dr. Neal Barnard of George Washington University. 
"The billboard’s blunt language was prompted by a recent survey showing that a surprising number—39 percent—of Americans do not know what the colon is," writes PCRM.com. 

Campbell's Tomato Soup: Bad Policy Spoils Good Soup

Andy Warhol painted it. The Paris Exposition awarded it the Gold Medallion for excellence in 1900.

American mothers have served it to children for over 100 years. My husband craves it when he's sick. Or busy at work.

In 2012, Campbell's Tomato Soup still ranks as one of the top ten selling dry grocery items in U.S. grocery markets.

Truth be known, it's fairly healthy, too, for canned, modern industrial food.  No fat, no cholesterol, no fake colors or flavors. Laced with minerals, iron and Vitamin C. An entire can... two servings... is only 270 calories (before requisite grilled cheese sandwich).

Campbell's has added a generous dose of high fructose corn syrup (i.e. sugar) to please America's sweet tooth. And all canned soups are inherently very high in sodium (i.e. salt). Clearly, canned soups are second best to homemade in both taste and nutrition.

The soup in Campbell's Tomato Soup isn't the health hazard. It's the can. 

Campbell's Soup Co., now a profit-hungry multinational corporation with $7.7 billion in annual sales, is one of the major food manufacturers to still line its cans with bisphenol-A (BPA), a hormone-disrupting chemical that can leach from can linings into the foods held inside.