Off the Lunch Table

After reading a blog post about Kraft Lunchables, I took the advice of Mrs. Q, a blogging teacher who chronicles her year of eating school lunch daily, and pawed though the Lunchables website for nutritional information. Frankly, now that I'm no longer 12 and barraged by Saturday-morning TV ads, I was surprised that kids and parents still bought those products--I wanted to better understand why.

Kraft touts the wholesomeness of the ultra-packaged processed foods, like whole wheat crackers and 100% turkey breast. The site features a green initiative that works by collecting the used Lunchables cartons from kids' friends. The newest Lunchables varieties include bottled spring water alongside a shot of concentrated liquid sugar drink. This is our children on Lunch®.

At the bottom of the page, I found a curious link to a document titled “Feeding your Child’s Potential,” written by a registered dietician. The first suggestion is to “constantly introduce new foods into your child’s diet.” Conveniently, this includes all the groups covered by Lunchables: “dairy, whole grains, lean meats and fruits,” with no mention anywhere of vegetables. The paper goes on to suggest cooking with kids, but only as a way to teach math and bolster self-assuredness: no hint about the value of fresh-cooked meals with real ingredients.

These and other suggestions dance around the changes needed to reverse a growing health crisis. In service of a massive processed foods purveyor, they simply help sell more Lunchables. The professionals at Kraft aren't  keen to publish anything that will lead someone to think twice about buying the products. By enlisting the author, a “highly-regarded expert in child nutrition and family eating,” Kraft legitimizes Lunchables for those parents who care deeply about nutrition and health, but who don’t have the time, energy or resources to find alternative, conflicting voices.

It’s easy to blame parents for unhealthy choices and habits of U.S. youth, but it also poses a problem for inspiring change. As happens with the broadest arguments about the causes of things, everyone is responsible and no one is accountable. We must be more direct. In the case of Kraft Lunchables, for example, it becomes clearer who is responsible for choices about diet and nutrition. Here, a company effectively manipulates parents who may have the inclination to question the value of their choices (and their children’s choices). The company uses the common belief in the truthfulness of dietary science and the collective need for expert reassurance to inform consumers’ choices. This is how the world works. But that doesn’t mean it works well or that it works for more than a few of us.

First, let's take Blaming the Parents off the table: blame is not a great motivator. Next, while it may seem impossible to counter the advertising power of companies like Kraft, we have to remember that they are scared of us. If they thought they had a strong-enough case for why their foods echo the values of their customers, they wouldn't need to Green-wash or hire a nutritionist to prove themselves--they could simply point to how much kids love Lunchables. But in real life, people are influenced more by those around them. The reason ads and marketing schemes succeed is that individuals are too reluctant to question the choices of friends and family. In that light, a powerful step each of us can take is to ask a question every day: Why do you choose that? Whether that question sparks a discussion or not is besides the point; what matters is showing your interest, not as means of criticizing but of supporting. By neccessity we become complacent in the face of streaming advertising telling us daily how to live. And yet we we become indignant when those who love us help us live better. Often, a gentle nudge says more than all those products yelling at us from the aisles.