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Food processing

(article, Culinate staff)

Back in February, the activist project ThinkProgress chastised Michelle Obama for backsliding on her Let's Move! health-and-fitness campaign:

bq. In 2010, the First Lady gave a fiery speech at a Grocery Manufacturers Association conference, arguing that changing personal habits won’t work if big companies like Kraft and General Mills continue to target children with misleading ads for sugary, fatty food. . . . But a little over a year later, Mrs. Obama backed away from this hard truth and redirected “Let’s Move” to focus on exercise and personal fitness — a position favored by processed food companies to divert scrutiny of their products. 

Last week's food-labeling brouhaha was a reminder that consumers do indeed scrutinize their purchases at the supermarket. The issue: boxes of Kraft's popular macaroni-and-cheese mix, sold in Britain, with mysterious labels warning that the product inside contained genetically modified wheat.

Coming on the heels of the discovery of GMO wheat growing in Oregon, this freaked more than a few people out. Even Snopes, the Internet debunker, got involved.

Truth in labeling? Buyer beware.