If you search the topic on Google, this thread is the first hit.
So why are the Powers That Be ignoring what should be a lucrative exploitable resource? I know Cecil is trying to revive his column but the posts themselves are an archive that shouldn’t be left to drift out into space.
The “Strong bodies 12 ways” wasn’t the only slogan for bread that I remember from my youth. There was a popular kids show out of Sioux Falls, where Captain 11 (from channel 11) would show the likes of Popeye and Snagglepuss cartoons. In between, he would peddle to kids, often Wonder Bread. He would have kids who were in the studio with him, there to watch cartoons, to come up and try to tear a slice of Wonder Bread neatly in half without tearing. It was harder than it seems. I wonder how many parents hated multiple slices of bread getting wasted this way by kids practicing at home; I know my mom did.
The FDA is underfunded and has limited powers of enforcement. Food companies are not permitted to tell bald-faced lies. They can’t say (in theory, and would be daft to do so in practice) wheat bread is gluten free, nor say food is free of nuts if it ain’t.
“Health claims” make mention of a specific disease or process, so the FDA can theoretically intervene if an American company says its food helps prevent osteoporosis or heart disease. Show me the studies!
So companies make “structure function claims”. Good source of fiber, calcium helps build strong bones, now with 50% more vitamins and other vague things like “12 ways”. Implying health benefits without being too specific, or needing expensive confirmation. It is legal to make irrelevant structure claims too - bottled water is low in cholesterol and GMO products. Of course the area between structure and health claims is large and helps fund many lawyerly things.
To me it’s ‘wonder[ful]’ people can mix all-purpose flour with ingredients and make it edible. When they invented it in Sumer it was and still is a lufe changing food design ever.
I mean I love to make Shoo-fly Pie where it’s got the basic crumb topping of 1 1/2 cups flour, 1/2 c of brown sugar and 2 Tb of butter. You’d think that would taste rank but you lay it over a cup of molasses and tapwater. All of a sudden I’d eat some every day, as ‘part of a balanced diet.’ Yet another creation some ordinary person came up with!
