Really? So backing up my assertions with cites is contributing nothing, but you’re allowed to rant to your heart’s content about a subject you clearly haven’t researched at all?
I guess you only consider agreement to be worthwhile contribution.
I’d like to answer. I actually have an answer. But not one I’m prepared to dump into the bitstream here. It’s part of something larger that will become public in the very near future.
And no, it’s not Section 1501 of the FDA code.
No surprise that people are different. But in both cases, I think “single serving” is a proper representation of what a “single serving” is, not some distorted advertising nonsense designed to fool the consumer. In fact, much packaging these days is including the “single serving” and “whole package” information to make that even more transparent. The only problem with the “single serving” bit is that the surveys were taken in the 70s/80s. I assume if the same surveys were taken today, there would be anywhere from 1.5-2x bloat for what constitutes “a single serving.”
I’m all for transparency, so let us know when you have an answer. It’s not going to change the way I shop, but as long as I have all the information I need to make a buying decision, I’m happy.
I know how serving sizes were set. When I said quantities to use, I was thinking more along the lines of seeing how a commercial uses a product and then assuming that you have to use it like that. Just because the mom slathers nutella over a slice of bread and serves it for breakfast doesn’t mean that that’s how we all use it or that the portrayal is somehow a dirty underhanded attempt to infiltrate solid American homes. I mean, it is dirty and underhanded but since when has advertising not been trying to trick us into buying things we didn’t want or need? The outrage here seems to me to come from a very naive place.
I’m picturing cigarette pack-style warnings and pictures of liposuctions, gastric-bypass, and diabetes-related amputations on every jar of Nutella. 
Ah. Then I think we’re on the same page. (And, to be fair, the amount of Nutella used in that commercial on the wholegrain bread is actually a restrained amount. Half a “serving size” if not less.)
No, that would be Section 1501 of the FDA code as implemented under Obama’s third term.
I think a number of posters in this thread, especially those that have stopped to comment how yummy Nutella is, have missed my point. I’m not agitating for health food, or the removal of all insufficiently healthy food from the market, or anything of the kind. I’m known to steal a spoonful of chocolate topping from the jar in the fridge myself, and worse.
My sole concern is the deceptive nature of the way this (and many other,** pulykamell**, happy?) products are marketed. You want to sell people sludge in a jar? Fine. But IMVHO, you should only be able to do so by labeling it sludge in a jar. And despite the holy FDA scrolls and all their teachings, it’s hard to find a single packaged product in a grocery store that doesn’t have a wrapper covered with something between nonsense, bullshit and bald-faced lies - beginning with many of the product names.
If anyone disagrees or thinks I’m overstating the case, fine. I won’t argue. If you’re so smart you’re never deceived by product packaging or marketing, praise be. If you think anyone who is is the one at fault… well, I’ll get back to you.
Some people do.
All people should.
And in no way do I believe that there should be restrictions on *what *is sold - only how. “Transparency” isn’t a term I would use, but it frames the issue perfectly. Frankly, we shouldn’t need 1500 sections of FDA regulation; that is a prima facie indication that the system is broken beyond repair.
When I was living in Germany Nutella was sometimes part of my breakfast. I’d spread a little on my kaiser roll or a piece of toast. When I moved back to the United States it was a few years before I could find it at any grocery store. Good stuff. Never thought it was healthy though.
(And I don’t find them deceptive. They’re not making any health claims. But anyhow, on to the next question.) So where do you draw the line? Is a nostalgia ad okay for you? You have a mom, spreading Nutella on toast (or a crepe or whatever), thinking back to her own childhood in the Old World, where her mom was doing the same for her. Flash back to current times, kids come running up for their sugar bombs, tagline something like “Nutella: Some Things Never Change” or whatever. I’m not an ad guy, but you get the idea.
Is that wrong in your world?
I agree, and hopefully I indicated it properly in my earlier post, that anyone who thought Nutella was a health food should, upon their first taste of it, recognize immediately what it actually is: a desert spread.
You’re really missing something then. It’s delicious on crepes, for example. But for dessert, as I said – not for breakfast. I’ve had it, once in a wihle, since I was a kid.
It’s amazing how wrong you are about fruit juice. and yes I mean 100% pure juice products, such as Tropicana brand not-from-concentrate orange juice. Ounce for ounce Tropicana has more calories than Coke, essentially the same amount of sugar, and contains zero vitamins needed by anyone, ever. The only nutrition they are even allowed to label is Vit c (which basically no one is short of) and a trivial amount of calcium. All other claims fall below the threshold where they can assert it on a nutrition label.
TOJ: 168 cal per 12 oz
Of which: 34g sugar
Coke: 140 cal per 12 oz
Of which: 39g sugar
In short your defense of OJ is indefensible, especially compared to a product obviously made of chocolate!!! Marketing for OJ is a thousand times more deceptive. Hmm, is it a good idea to each chocolate for breakfast every single day??? Gee I just cant figure it out on my own… With OJ even you are fooled to the point where you defend them! I used to feel the same way till I wised up and looked at the label.
Nothing wrong with it for breakfast. It’s used just like jam or syrup.
In my world? My gosh, this is all mine?
N’emind, I get you. What I don’t have is an answer short enough to fit here, and what I can say isn’t specific to the topic of this thread. So if I can hijack my own thread and make it clear that this is not specific to Nutella or that I am even addressing your specific example -
We have become so conditioned by advertising, and we so misunderstand its function and intent that we accept blithering nonsense at every turn. Nearly everyone says something like “Oh, I never listen to ads” (however they mean ‘listen’ in this context), which may be true for any individual ad (“I just saw a Budweiser ad and didn’t run out to drink one, see?”) but dismisses the collective force they apply to us, individually and as a society. So blandly meaningless ads showing happy kids having a bite of something their mommy and grandmommy loved is perhaps benign in itself, but part of a specific and collective conditioning that I think is excessive, destructive and utterly unnecessary.
As I’ve pointed out in other threads, most advertising today consists of a product shot coupled with a logo or brand name shot; if there is anything else, it tends to be inconsequential filler because we are sufficiently conditioned to respond to those two key elements that anything else is unnecessary.
Yeah, I’m not really getting where the pancakes slathered in butter and syrup is perfectly acceptable but toast with chocolate hazelnut spread is not.
I haven’t defended OJ. I said I disagreed with pulykamell’s repeated use of it in the discussion as an equivalent product.
I am not here to champion one food over another, or one sludgefest under another, or anything of the kind. Half a dozen different contributors have turned this into a health-food war, but I wasn’t one of them.
Your op asked if Nutella is the most deceptive product. Hells no. The most deceptive product in my opinion is orange juice. A product you championed as being a genuinely healthy thing to consume daily for breakfast.
You asked if Nutella was the “most deveptive” in the subject line of your OP. Some posters are telling you they think OJ is worse.
ETA: ninja’ed