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Is the processed food industry the tobacco industry of the 21st century? The following example is as integrity-less as the lies the tobacco industry perpetrated about cigarettes being safe.

Froot Loops is a processed breakfast cereal made of 41% sugar, partially-hydrogenated oils and artificial coloring and chemicals. Nonetheless, you'll find a "Smart Choice" seal of approval on boxes of Froot Loops™ cereal.

"Smart Choices" is a food labeling system designed by and paid for by the nation's major food manufacturers and managed by -- get this -- the American Society of Nutrition!

Smart Choices chairman, Mike Hughes, says the purpose of Smart Choices is to "help people make choices about healthier food." But wait, it gets better. The president of the Smart Choices Board is not only a nutritionist, but a highly placed one at that: Eileen T. Kennedy, dean of the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy at Tufts University.

Leading nutritionists endorse Froot Loops as a Smart Choice food? You've got to be kidding me.

Dumb choices being labeled as Smart Choices? What a sick example of how what passes for food in the United States destroys health rather than contributes to it -- and how this integrity deficit is actively endorsed by those claiming to be nutritionists!

To read more about this stunning example of how the food processing industry is actively committed destroying your health while pretending to promote it, click on these links:

• CBS News: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/09/06/eveningnews/main5291352.shtml
• Natural News: http://www.naturalnews.com/027077_nutrition_food_Tufts_University.html

For this stunning effort to label what is bad for your health as being a Smart Choice, the American Society of Nutrition has received my latest Integrity Disgrace Award.

I have repeatedly said that until health reform efforts finally start treating food as the front line of health that it is, our health costs will continue to skyrocket.

This is yet one more illustration of why Health Integrity is one of the five ingredients in my Integrity Stimulus Plan public service project. Please spread the word about this plan. Details at www.IntegrityStimulusPlan.org