Experts say there can be long-term health consequences for babies and infants who consume too much sugar at a young age.
In Switzerland, the label of Nestlé’s Cerelac baby cereal says it contains “no added sugar.” But in Senegal and South Africa, the same product has 6 grams of added sugar per serving, according to a recent Public Eye investigation. And in the Philippines, one serving of a version of the Cerelac cereal for babies 1 to 6 months old contains a whopping 7.3 grams of added sugar, the equivalent of almost two teaspoons.
This “double standard” for how Nestlé creates and markets its popular baby food brands around the world was alleged in a report from Public Eye, an independent nonpartisan Swiss-based investigative organization, and International Baby Food Action Network.
The groups allege that Nestlé adds sugars and honey to some of its baby cereal and formula in lower-income countries, while products sold in Europe and other countries are advertised with “no added sugars.” The disparities uncovered in the report, which was published in the BMJ in April, has raised alarms among global health experts.
Evil aside, what is the benefit to Nestle of adding sugar? It’s not like the babies are asking for the high sugar stuff at the grocery store…
It’s less expensive than the other ingredients and is additictive.
They’d put heroin in baby formula if it was cheap and they could get away with it.
Fuck Nestle.
Everyone says that. Have been for decades now.
But as long as our major politicians are Republicans and neoliberals, nothing is going to change.
Because their whole economical philosophy is corporations over money and that wealth “trickles down”.
You want to do something about Nestle?
Vote progressives, especially ones that eschew corporate donors.
I’m just tired of the vast majority of people being against something, but (at least for Americans) voting for people who like it.
https://www.opensecrets.org/federal-lobbying/clients/summary?id=D000042332
We need to get rid of the shit show that is American lobbying, and only progressives push for that
But as long as our major politicians are Republicans and neoliberals, nothing is going to change.
Those poorer countries have governments too. They should be the first line of defense for their citizens. Fuck Nestle and all their products, but the reality is that there’s absolutely nothing a foreign power can do to protect the people living in those countries
You could pass legislation that requires corporations not to do harmful activities in other countries if these activities are illegal in your country. If a corporation does such an activity abroad it would still be prosecuted as a crime in your country. If a corporation doesn’t want to subject itself to such accountability, it would have to stop doing business in your country.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
And in the Philippines, one serving of a version of the Cerelac cereal for babies 1 to 6 months old contains a whopping 7.3 grams of added sugar, the equivalent of almost two teaspoons.
In the European Region, the World Health Organization guidelines state that no added sugar should be used in foods for infants under the age of 3.
And the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control in Nigeria released a statement in response to the report that said the Nestlé products in the country do adhere to their standards.
A spokesperson for Nestlé told NBC News that the company is working on reducing added sugars worldwide and offers sugar-free products in several countries.
All our early life foods and milks are nutritionally balanced as defined in the commonly accepted scientific guidelines and dietary recommendations, including CODEX.”
Siddiqui said that monetary stressors might also be influencing parents to continue buying added sugar formulas and baby cereals that their children appear to like.
The original article contains 1,039 words, the summary contains 166 words. Saved 84%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
I would love it if the auto TL;DR bot would summarize every article about nestle with simply, “Fuck nestle” and save its compute cycles for other news.
The same company that gave out free baby formular to poor African families and then, after a couple of months, went “nuh-uh you now have to pay so your babies don’t die lol”? Surprising.
If we didn’t live in corporatocracies masquerading as “democracies” the execs and managers who pulled that shit would be serving life in prison.
Edit: Note that Nestle did this so the mothers would stop producing milk and their babies survival would become dependent on Nestle — pure unadulterated psychopathy!
I’ve known this for years. Why is it news now?
So it shouldn’t continue to be exposed ? Let the bad news (for Nestle) blow over ?
This really doesn’t have much to do with Nestlé. This is about the purchasing habits of consumers in different markets as influenced by global wealth inequality, lacking education, and inadequate access to healthcare. While large corporations absolutely have certain influence on those factors, this issue of more sugar in some products is so far downstream from the real problems that it’s just a useless distraction.
High sugar for poor babies doesn’t concern you?
