The creator of the Lunchables brand of processed foods won’t feed them to his own children because “we eat healthy”.
If there is anything that makes me sad, it’s the large number of students who have lunchboxes filled with items that qualify as chemistry experiments…not food.
The hugely popular Lunchables are perhaps the best-known example of the modern lab lunch.
They are truly an example of the industrialized food system gone horribly awry and a populace completely out of touch with how to nourish its children.
Highly processed, enticingly packaged creations target young children specifically. The nutrient-poor Lunchable comes in numerous combinations to suit any young, impressionable palate.
Examples of the dozens of different meal combo varieties include crackers, pizzas, small hot dogs, small burgers, nachos, subs, and pseudo-healthy wraps.
Manufacturers choose cheap meats that are frequently cut, filled, and extended with hormone-disrupting soy protein.
Further, they disguise this GMO frankenfood under a variety of confusing aliases.
Lunchables also can include an assortment of drinks and desserts. The beverage is commonly a GMO high fructose corn syrup laden Capri Sun or Tropical Punch flavored Kool-Aid mix with bottled water.
Desserts would be jello or pudding or a candy alternative, like Reese’s cups or Butterfingers.
I’ve often wondered how corporate executives who come up with these products live with themselves.
Now, thanks to author Michael Moss, author of the eye-opening book Salt, Sugar, Fat: How the Food Giants Hooked Us, now we know.
These people are in complete denial.
They truly believe they are doing the public a favor by providing cheap, convenience foods “fortified” with synthetic vitamins.
“We Eat Healthy”
Bob Drane, Lunchables inventor, whose own upper-middle-class children don’t eat what Daddy created for “other” children, had this to say:
I wish that the nutritional profile of the thing could have been better, but I don’t view the entire project as anything but a positive contribution to people’s lives.
Drane’s own daughter confessed: “We eat healthy (sic).”
Industry executives disgusted with this elitist, hypocritical approach to business are, unfortunately, not as common as those with their heads in the sand.
The lone example provided by Moss in his book is Jeffrey Dunn, a rapidly rising executive for Coca-Cola who rose almost to the top of the ladder. While working for Coke, he said he achieved peace of mind by simply not allowing himself to think about what he actually sold.
He changed his mind abruptly on a business trip to Brazil in 2001. Dunn’s marching orders from Coca-Cola were simple. Find the best way to push Coke on poor Brazilian kids living in the ghettos.
After that eye-opening trip, Dunn tried for 4 years to change Coke from the inside. Unsuccessful, he left the company, unable to stand the relentless marketing to the poor and Coke addicted a moment longer.
As consumers, we really should not be surprised by the behavior of the majority of Big Food executives.
After all, the job of marketing is to sell “lots of stuff and make lots of money”. This is the bottom line according to Sergio Zyman, marketing head of Coca-Cola during the 1990s.
It is up to us as parents to choose not to pack lab lunches for our children. We say “no” most effectively by withholding our food dollars.
A growing number of consumers buying their food consciously will, over time, force companies to consider the moral consequences of their products.
For some easy ideas to wean off Lunchables, here are some ideas on how to pack a healthy school lunch.
References
(1) Our Broken Food System
(2) Salt, Sugar, Fat: How the Food Giants Hooked Us
When people don’t value their children more than their comfort or ease…do you really expect them to care!!??!! Many many parents that I have met, told me that they won’t do healthy because it is too hard. I have also heard many folks say that they eat totally different meals than their kids. While the kids subsist on box mac and cheese and tv dinners…the parents eat pork chops and steaks and salads. The reasoning….the kids don’t know the difference and would prefer the box!
OMGosh!! People if your kid wants candy cyanide caps, would you let them have it????
Grow up folks and become parents and not buddies. Parents and their children can be friends…..really good friends…but first the parents have to have the balls and grow up and be parents….not just large overgrown selfish brats!
Hi Sarah,
Thanks for sharing this. My children refer to Lunchables as Grossables and Yuckables. They have no desire for them at all. Swimming upstream on these issues at a young age is a gateway to a lifetime of being able to do what is right despite what everyone else is doing.
I particularly enjoyed reading about Jeffrey Dunn. What a huge step to turn away from “having it all’ as viewed by modern culture for moral reasons. How inspirational on so many levels!
Thanks again for keeping us informed and empowered!
I love your posts…but is it wise to have a link to “Chicken Helper” on your site??
Hi Mary,
Believe it or not, Sarah does not get to choose what ads come up when you look at her site. That is determined by some complicated computer programs that take into consideration what topic is on the page (like a busy mom feeding her family), and things that you may have looked at in the past. As I look at my view of the page, I have a toilet paper ad on mine. You might notice too that if yo have searched for something on Amazon, that item will be advertised to you on other pages.
Dang, I just had a feeling that Salt, Sugar, Fat by Michael Moss would be right about some things but wrong about fats. Sure enough, I was right.
These things always grossed me out….even way before I switched to a real food diet.
I’m getting grossed out just walking down a supermarket aisle now……
I am ashamed to say that back in my Dark Ages, before I understood what true nutrition was, I often sent my daughter to school with a Lunchables in her backpack. She liked it,it was fairly cheap and so very easy for a busy mom. Fortunately, she survived my ignorance and is now a healthy young adult. She’s the person who turned me onto WAP and our beloved Healthy Home Economist. Bento boxes are so easy, I make them for myself all the time; a hardboiled pastured egg, sprouted grain crackers and cheese with some fruit. Anyone else have ideas for DIY bento boxes?
Thank you for sharing that story! 🙂
The link below has 5 days of lunch ideas. It’s put together by a Paleo blogger with the cooperation of a representative of LunchBots, but the recipes and ideas would certainly work for those of you who are following WAP. Unfortunately, several of these recipes use eggs, so they will not work for people with an egg allergy/sensitivity (including my own kids). Still, there’s some fun ideas for kids’ (or adults) lunches:
http://nomnompaleo.com/post/30267255011/a-week-of-paleo-school-lunches-part-1-of-5
Great article, Sarah. Pre-fab meals are science experiments and children and families are the guinea pigs, paying a dear price for the convenience. How convenient are chronic and debilitating illness, depression and learning impairments?
Thanks for linking to that outstanding new article by Sally Fallon, Our Broken Food System, http://www.westonaprice.org/modern-foods/our-broken-food-system. Excellent reading!
Hi Sarah
I completely agree with you. I talk to my children about this all of the time and tell them the reasons why I refuse to buy them these Frankenfoods. And I try to point out the differences between the children that eat these foods versus the children like ours that eat properly. Recently, the dentist was in school looking at childrens’ teeth, and in my daughter’s class, she was one of the only ones that did not get a letter indicating that she had tooth decay. I use this story and others (like the compliments that people give me about them, my children, on well-mannered and behaved they are) to further boost my point about the difference food really makes.
case in point that companies respond to consumer demand for higher quality products – even the behemoths like Coke…
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/06/28/coca-cola-life_n_3516512.html
not that this is “good” but it is “not as bad”…
Liam