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.
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
There was a great John Oliver episode about how Cigarettes are sold in African and South Asian countries. Any effort to regulate the market, like introducing warning labels, limiting tobacco ads, or even just disallowing the sale of individual cigarettes in front of schools, was immediately met with huge backlashes by big tobacco.
If your countries GDP is 5 Billion US-D and Phil Morris has a turnover of 80 Billions US-D plus the lobbying power to have the US or EU threaten sanctions against that country, it is pretty darn difficult to provide the same level of consumer protection laws.
Don’t blame the countries that are on the short end of neocolonialism, when your government is complicit in it.
Corporations do depend on money, so every bit of money you don’t give to Nestlé reduces their power just a tiny bit. Nestlé is a difficult company to boycott though, because they own so many brands.
Most of their brands are crap products though. I’m sure I’m not 100% successful,but I mostly cook my own fresh foods, and if you eliminate most of the processed “food” from your diet, its a great big step. I still eat cheetos and pork rinds and potato chips though.
Those poorer countries can’t
I wish I could find it but there was a palm oil company that was banned from an island and they just ignored it
Nestle most probably just buys local factories which already produce this crap and rebrands it. Even if Nestle would be forbidden from doing business in those countries, the locals would not be any better off. They really need their authorities to step in. There’s no other way.
Sanctions.
If America told Nestle and other corporations that if you’re committing human rights abuses anywhere, you’re not welcome in our markets.
It’s not some impossible thing.
It’s just something that isn’t possible till we have politicians who represent voters more than corporations.
We need progressive majorities for that. But shit can be better
this article is not about acts of human rights abuse, is it?
No you don’t understand, America = bad. If someone is doing something wrong it must be Americas fault or I must find some way to shoehorn politics into every conversation.
America and the EU are imposing the economic and political order that gives those companies leverage over small countries and blocks them from consumer protection or worker protection legislation. Heck, the US invaded foreign countries more than once to make sure their companies get to maximize profits, while making the people suffer.
America and the EU are imposing the economic and political order that gives those companies leverage over small countries and blocks them from consumer protection or worker protection legislation.
What on earth are you on about? The EU lobbies world wide for consumer and worker protection. Where are you getting your info from?
have you actually read those links? First is a political statement from 2014 which starts with :
Germany and Europe contribute large sums of tax money toward various development programmes in Africa, Nooke explained, but the economic agreement with African states cancels out these efforts.
and it should be easy to see now that the guy was just playing his voters.
the second one is about britain post brexit
the 3rd is about the influence of other markets on the quality of products in the EU.
Which one of those actually proves your point?
I am confused why you’re talking about USA. The article doesn’t mention USA, and Nestle is a Swiss company.
I mean, better regulations in the US would be great though
Because America is where they do a lot of shady shit…
If America threatened to cut Nestle off from the American market they would break their backs bending over for whatever we asked.
Other countries have more people, but don’t spend as much money. Other countries have more money, but don’t buy garbage food.
America is Nestle’s ideal market, and they have large monopolies.
I guess looking at their official 2023 report, it does look like they make a lot in the North American Zone (Canada, US, Mexico) compared to other zones.
All my homies hate Nestle
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.
And after the mother’s stopped producing their own milk, when they only had dirty water to mix with the formula.
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!
corporatocracies masquerading as “democracies”
Thank you. I’ve been trying so hard to figure out exactly what’s going on in the world and the “democracy is best no matter what” mentality a lot of useful idiots seem to believe.
This sums it up very well.
Democracy IS best. We arguably don’t have it because capitalism is pay to play and money equals speech = the orgs and individuals with the most money have the most influence over politics and government; so much so that wealth essentially controls policy — note that despite the USA being one of the most obvious and egregious examples, the problem is not isolated in any way shape or form.
If there were hard limits on individual wealth, every business was a co-op owned by the workers, and their influence on society was properly regulated, maybe we would have much more egalitarian democracies, but individuals and orgs will always strive to corrupt the system for their own power/wealth advantage (incl under any other system e.g. socialism).
Let’s not forget they dressed their workers as nurses
They’ve been criminally evil forever. Fuck Nestlé.
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.
#FCKNSTL
“Sweet!” - Eric Cartman.
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 ?
Nothing wrong with that at all. I’m just not sure what new information there is here? This is a “Today I learned” not a “today we learned.”
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?
Nestlé isn’t the only brand of baby food available in those markets, they sit right next to products that do have that “no added sugar” label. But that healthier alternative is not what sells better, the cheaper ones do, why? Because the consumers in those markets either can’t afford the healthy food or they lack the education to know the importance of a good diet.
What products are available on a market is a reflection of the purchasing habits of the consumers in that market, and those habits are a result of the macro socioeconomic factors of the region. If Nestlé changed all their products to be “no added sugar” right now then the prices of those products would need to be bumped up slightly which would mean the consumers would shift to another brand that’s cheaper which has the same issue and hey presto nothing has changed.
Nestlés products having added sugar is not the problem it is a symptom.
So what do we do if we want to solve these big problems? Well that’s not easy, it largely depends on the governments and people of those regions, but we can help. There are charities like plan-international.org which tries to directly tackle inequality and education, but driving economic activity can also help, maybe next time you go grocery shopping you buy a Senegal peanut oil or a pack of batteries from The Philippines. These are big hard problems that won’t be easily solved, but if we are to have any chance to fixing them we need to be able to identify what the problem is, getting mad at a brand is a lot easier than recognizing the underlying issues.
