Eat Your Greens(wash)
by Bonnie Alter, London on 04.16.08
Subway riders have had this bizarre ad staring them in the face all week. A big bowl of frozen french fries with the tag line "Eat Your greens." But McCain's doesn't mean that a serving of Rustic Oven Chips is as good as fresh vegetables. According to a spokesman "That's not the idea at all." Apparently it is all about the 4 green "traffic lights" on the right hand side of the ad. They are part of the Food Standards Agency's new food labelling scheme which indicates how healthy different foods are according to their rating system. The chips have scored "green" on four different categories. So the green means the traffic lights, not that they are vegetables. Get it?
Not everyone does. So far there have been three complaints about the Rustic Oven Chips ad claiming that it is misleading because potatoes do not count towards the required five portions of fruit and vegetables and do not count as "greens". McCain's is launching this upmarket premium brand to try and resurrect the failing french fry industry now that people have started to understand more about healthy diets. They say that their new Rustic Oven Chips are the only ones to score "green" on all four counts: low in fat, saturates, sugar and salt. Treehuggers are familiar with the concept of greenwashing but this one takes the cake, oops, vegetable. :: Guardian
Hard to blame a company for trying to hang on. Consumers are getting smarter, so this campaign will fail.
On the flip side, everyone wants to bake up so french fries now and again; may as well go with a product low in fat, saturates, sugar and salt. Better yet, buy potatoes, and make your own.
We have these up in Glasgow as well; it does not bode well to have such misleading adverts up in a country with such high rates of heart disease and obesity. Fortunately, there has been some good recent work on the part of local governments to encourage healthy diets (or, at least the beginnings of recognition of the issues surrounding poor nutrition).
However, we've a long way to go concerning public education on the topic and this type of ad just compounds the difficulties (witness the kids letting out of school mid-afternoon and going round to the local chippy for a snack, "well I'm getting my greens, aren't I?").
We have these up in Glasgow as well; it does not bode well to have such misleading adverts up in a country with such high rates of heart disease and obesity. Fortunately, there has been some good recent work on the part of local governments to encourage healthy diets (or, at least the beginnings of recognition of the issues surrounding poor nutrition).
However, we've a long way to go concerning public education on the topic and this type of ad just compounds the difficulties (witness the kids letting out of school mid-afternoon and going round to the local chippy for a snack, "well I'm getting my greens, aren't I?").
Treehugger needs to let up a tad bit here. Baked Fries are not unhealthy. If you fry them yes, but baking potato wedges in the oven isn't a bad thing at all. Much healthier snack for kids than handing them a bag of potato chips. If you have some of these as part of your carbs for the day there isn't anything wrong with it at all in my eyes.
they look yummy. . . but they could do more to indicate what they mean by 'green'. . .
um...i dont want to sound strange but... would it be easier, not to mention better for the enviroment, just to cut and bake your own locally grown potatoes? I mean it takes me about 5 min to peel, cover in olive oil, spice and put in the oven. The cook time is about the same- 20 min or so.
Why use the gas and energy for trucked in frozen potatoes?
John said, "Treehugger needs to let up a tad bit here. Baked Fries are not unhealthy. If you fry them yes, but baking potato wedges in the oven isn't a bad thing at all. Much healthier snack for kids than handing them a bag of potato chips. If you have some of these as part of your carbs for the day there isn't anything wrong with it at all in my eyes."
Completely in agreement; my contention would be against this ad specifically. I dare say that most people looking at it aren't going to register "oh, there are oven baked chips which are lower in fat because they are not deep fried." The message, intentional or not, is more like "Ah, chips; when I go out, I can get chips and that will be a serving of green veg."
(Was just reading through today's Guardian. There is a rebuttal from McCains saying that they oven chips are not as unhealthy as deep fried and etc.)
There is a similar situation here in El Paso, Texas where I live. A radio station ad misleads its listeners asking them to "Go Green" in terms of saving cash. I wrote to the radio station asking them to reconsider future green advertisements and take the statement "Going Green" more seriously. Is there something that can be done against this misuse of words? It is critical that the public is not confused but educated as to what "going green" means.