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 targeted to young children, nutrient-poor Lunchables are offered in numerous combinations to suit any young, impressionable palate. The Lunchables brand boasts 26 different varieties of meal combos. Examples include crackers, pizzas, small hot dogs, small burgers, nachos, subs, and pseudo healthy wraps.
The meats are frequently cut, filled, and/or extended with hormone-disrupting soy protein. Further, this GMO frankenfood is disguised under a variety of aliases.
Lunchables also can include an assortment of drinks and desserts. The drink 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 Salt, Sugar, Fat: How the Food Giants Hooked Us, now we know. They are in complete denial.
These individuals truly believe they are doing the public a favor by providing cheap, convenience foods “fortified” with synthetic vitamins.
Lunchables Inventor’s Children Don’t Eat What Daddy Created
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” 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 and to say no with 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 – else they won’t win our business.
For some easy ideas to wean off Lunchables, here are some ideas on how to pack a healthy school lunch.
References
Our Broken Food System, Sally Fallon Morell
Salt, Sugar, Fat: How the Food Giants Hooked Us, Michael Moss
Finding Healthy Soy Sauce: The Good, Bad, and Very Ugly
This post jumped out at me because I just posted a healthy lunchbox item! It’s horrifying to see what people are buying for their children and what Big Ag and Big Food are selling to the children!
The comment about his children reminds me about finding out that the Monsanto employees eat organic non-GMO in their corporate headquarters in DC.
imagine that
I LOVED those as a kid. I was always so excited when I would get to choose them for my field trips. Now, no thanks.
not surprized. i always had the impression that kids liked lunchables for the status of it. there are not a lot of things kids have that give them status/have a cool factor.
Go figure!
I would agree,a bit hypocritical. Kinda like Monsanto employees don’t eat anything they produce, and all of the rich people don’t eat any of the crap that we have to eat……
Anyone know the name of the book written by the former Coke exec?
Well, I hope my future child can get ‘status’ & ‘coolness’ from the largely home grown/made organic &/or biodynamic lunches I’ll be sending them to school with. I will love them too much to feed them that dna damaging crap.
That stuff is garbage. Shame on the creator for not striving to feed children higher quality food. Thank goodness plenty of other food companies do strive to do the right thing for our children.
I imagine it is. First I’ll have to see if I’m fertile enough to even produce a child… after a childhood of being fed on this crap has surely contributed to my having pcos.
Of course he won’t! Have you read all the toxic ingredients that make up this “food”?
Ultimately, it is the parents who decide what their children eat…no one can force you to buy this stuff….I think it’s about time parents took responsibility for what their children eat and stop blaming the companies, the advertisements, the stores, etc…stop being lazy and fix your kids better meals….stop suing places like McD’s because they entice kids with toys! Put the blame where it belongs, on parents! And stop buying this stuff if you don’t want your kids to have it! simple as that! It’s called common sense!
but yet you don’t know that it is being forced. it is being forced economically as the cheap food to sell in the discount market. i bought these at aldi, i am a poor food subscriber, but i wasn’t raised this way. at least i get it and you don’t. you see back in the 80’s our government sold us out, remember the made in hong kong. not any more, it’s all in made in china now. and this is how we are being forced to buy and consume and even eat poisonous things, because the fda and the congress agreed it could be sold to us.. how is that choice? i don’t have the choice to go to the farmers market! it is only available to people who do not work on thursdays from 9a to 3pm. what kind of choice do we really have when all the stores and all the corporations are pouring this putrid “food” down our stomachs, wasting good ingredients by mixing it with poison drives up the cost of real food. call it a consumer driven market or the cost of freedom, but obviously when people can only choose between down right rotten spoiled or poison what kind of a choice is that?
I can’t understand how people can feed those to their kids! Ugh!
Ew. I grew up without ever tasting one and I will make sure my 2.5yr old never has one. Disgusting chemicals.
Glad the coke exec eventually had a conscious.
Ha! I told the kids it’s “Barbie” food, you know, plastic, only fit for a plastic doll to eat. They totally got it.
Not sad that companies MAKE it…sad that parents BUY it. They can sell whatever and we choose of we buy it or not.. Duh
I eat the small lunchable with ham and cheddar on crackers. With two vanilla creme cookies. I see that it is no different than lunchmeat you by at the store. They are all made the same way. All processsed.
How about not being offended by what other parents are feeding their kids. I grew up on these and I turned out okay! Not everyone has 300 or more to spend on organic crap every month.
There weren’t GMOs when you were growing up. I ate fast food growing up but it is far different today! Your argument that “I ate it, and I turned out ok” is invalid.
https://www.thehealthyhomeeconomist.com/fast-food-they-dont-make-it-like-they-used-to/