Healthy Weight Commitment Foundation manufacturing companies will pursue their calorie reduction goal by developing and introducing lower-calorie options, changing recipes where possible to lower the calorie content of current products, or reducing portion sizes of existing single-serve products. These calorie reductions are in comparison with what was available in the marketplace in 2008.
Skepticism is warranted, if only because, so far as I can tell, there is no Calorie Measuring Authority, and the science of counting calories is not as exact as one might think. The Grocery Manufacturers Association, which helped to put together today's event, spent $1 million in the first quarter of 2010 on lobbying, much of it for the maintenance of corn subsidies.
I'd love to see them lobby for, say, tomato and fruit subsidies. More than public events, how these groups interact with Congress matters, because that's where food policy is set. I should also note that some of these same companies have spent money to convince the public that high fructose corn syrup isn't as bad as it seems to be.
That said, if these companies can pull it off, then more power to them. Let's just hope that this is one of many steps they take voluntarily.
This article available online at:
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2010/05/cutting-15-trillion-calories/56847/
