When I was a kid, and maybe still today (I don’t care enough to look it up), Wonder Bread touted that it “buil[t] strong bodies 12 ways.” What was really going on is that its food technologists had started with grain products of nature, “refined” it beyond recognition, and then tossed in a bunch of nutritive additives to make up for what they had taken out. In effect they were saying, “look at all the goodness we’ve added, so you won’t notice all the goodness we took out.”

What resulted, of course, were slices of blindingly white near-paste that could be compressed into a ball that would have hurt if launched in a food fight. It seems so ‘60s, but check this out:

PepsiCo is seeking to patent a method of adding fiber- and polyphenol-rich co-products from fruit and veg juice extraction back to juices and other beverages in a bid to improve their sensory and nutritional profile, and minimize waste from the juice extraction process. ~ FoodNavigator-USA.com

Still crazy after all these years — breaking what’s good down into its parts, and then trying to figure out how to put more of it back in. How ‘bout, don’t break it down in the first place?

Note to devious mouthpieces of Big Food ("Always with the negative waves, man."):

Something needn't the sole cause of a problem to be a cause of a problem. So when you fault any attempt to curb consumption of sugary sodas because soda isn't the sole cause of obesity, you're just obscuring the truth.

No, sugary soda is not solely responsible. The problem and its contributors are varied, confusing, and sometimes conflicting.

I am not only aware of packaging's influence on sales, I am a a participant in the phenomenon. I like convenience, and I've made purchases where the container competed with the contents for primacy.

Following on my previous post, I take note of Carey Goldberg's post last week at the Commonhealth blog, where she is co-proprietor. She commented: 

Lawrence Yang of San Francisco is an information architecture nerd by day, an art nerd by night, according to his website. He scored a night coup with this one...

A host for an amalgam of science bloggers is in trouble with some of its writers because it agreed to "host a blog sponsored by Pepsi where the soft drink company's employees would write about nutrition," according to a news site at nature.com.