Marie Callender’s Chicken Pot Pie: Made From Scratch?
I grew up eating frozen Chicken Pot Pie. As a child of a working mom in the 70s and 80s, Swanson Chicken Pot Pies were one of her go-to solutions for getting a meal on the table after a long day of work. While I’m not exactly sure what was in those Swanson Chicken Pot […]
Quaker Breakfast Flats … A Healthy Breakfast or a Breakfast Cookie?
Breakfast can be one of the hardest meals of the day, especially if you’re not a morning person. Yes, that “not a morning person” comment needs a big arrow pointing at me. 🙂 So marketing healthy, convenient breakfast foods is literally a goldmine for food companies. But are most of these products really healthy? Let’s take a […]
Winning at All Costs. The Problem with Taste Tests
Many people think that choosing a taste test winning brand makes a lot of sense. After all, don’t we all want better tasting food? But after learning what it takes to be crowned a winner, you may want to think twice before choosing foods that have “won” a taste test. Why are taste tests so popular in the […]
Healthy Brownies: Fact or Food Company Fiction?
Are brownies healthy? Processed food companies would love for you to think so, but you know better, right? Unfortunately there are plenty of people who are falling victim to Big Food’s “healthy dessert” scam. Let’s make sure you and your friends aren’t one of them. How Does the Healthy Brownies Scam Work? Brownies taste great, and we […]
Why I Quit Eating Processed Foods
It’s hard to believe, but about five years ago I officially “broke-up” with processed foods. Yes, I had left General Mills two years earlier, but I consider the break-up official when I purchased my first summer share at a local, organic farm in 2010. The break-up was a long time coming. After leading General Mills’ Honey […]
Eating Vegetables: The One Healthy Eating Habit Big Food Never Talks About And Why
What’s the one healthy habit you never hear food companies talk about? It’s the power of vegetables and other plants in our diets. Don’t believe me? To help illustrate this point I took a quick look at advertising spending for the past several years, and do you want to guess what percent of spending supported healthy, […]
The Top 17 Health Claims Big Food Uses To Keep You Buying More and More
It’s Weight Loss Season (again)! If you’ve watched any TV the past couple weeks you’ve seen it happen before your eyes! The ads for diet plans and diet aids are streaming before us. And after months of pushing indulgence the food industry is now promoting health … or at least its version of health. As […]
Weight Loss Carpetbaggers
Well they’re doing it again. When the New Year rolls around, Big Food companies start peddling their insane weight loss programs filled with leanwashed, “healthy” food options. It’s pretty ironic if you think about it–the very same processed food companies that mislead us into eating more and more empty calories then turn around and sell […]
Another Big Food Head Fake
Last month Californians lost their fight to label GMOs with the defeat of Prop. 37. Thanks in large part to Big Food and Ag companies spending over $46 million on misleading and blatantly false advertising, consumers will remain in the dark about what’s really in their food. But false and misleading advertising is nothing new […]
Gerber: A Broken Promise?
Several days ago Seth Godin’s blog caught my attention. He had a post about marketing and promises that said: Marketing is about making promises and then keeping them. The marketer comes to us and makes a promise. If we accept the promise, a sale is made. If we seduce ourselves into accepting small promises, we […]
Pinkwashed
Fundraising is a tough business. How many times have you screened or hung-up on a telemarketer? Thrown away the mailer requesting a donation? Or deleted the email from your favorite non-profit? And do you ever feel like when you finally make that donation, you’re quickly “thanked” by a barrage of requests asking for more? That’s […]
Are All Marketers Liars?
In his 2005 bestseller Seth Godin proclaimed All Marketers Are Liars. It didn’t take long for Mr. Godin to admit that he was lying: I wasn’t being completely truthful with you when I named this book. Marketers aren’t liars. They are just storytellers… At the time Mr. Godin’s book was released, I was working in the […]
