Greenwashing: Frito Lay
It seems to me that they are trying to gain attention by giving the perception that they are “going green” by making big announcements that they are going to use cars that are more fuel efficient (instead of using cars that can be powered off the grease from the chips), or amping up their website to make it seems that buying their chips will help save the world because they are using less water. The website reads “The biggest impact we can have is to not have one.” Sure, that sounds nice, and makes them look like they are trying and that they care but their products remain entirely unhealthy, and they are attempting to hid this, and that is the true test of how much they care.
Frito Lay All Natural Snacks. They say, “We Grow the Best Snacks on Earth.” I had saved an advertisement, but I couldn’t find it, which had this growing the best snacks slogan and there was a corn field with a bag of chips next to it. This definitely gives the impression that they are giving you a healthy product, and that they are growing their crops the way any normal farmer would grow their crops. And we see on their bags that the chips are “still made with all natural oil.” I would hope so! But Frito Lay brand chips are not a healthy snack. As The Greenway Communique points out about a bag of Cheetos Puffs, “here may not be any trans fat, but every ounce has one and a half grams of saturated fat and ten grams of total fat. As for the real cheese, it’s in there. Listed on the ingredients just after “salt.” So, one 11-ounce bag of these “nutritious” snacks will give you more than 150 percent of your daily fat needs with just a pinch of cheese.” Sounds like they are trying to cover up the facts with slogans about all natural oils, or using real cheese, or 0 grams of trans fats.
March 18, 2009
No offense, but I think you’ve gotten a little off track here. I see your point about the misleading health claims of the ingredients, but \healthy eating habits\ is not the same thing as \being green.\ An environmentally conscious person can eat junk food too! (As long as that food is made from sustainable harvests and comes in recyclable or easily degradable packaging)
March 18, 2009
Hey, thanks for the note. I was a little unsure myself about posting this one but in the end decided that I would consider it greenwashing because I think “going green” could definitely entail having so-called natural ingredients. Throwing around the world “natural” as if the product is healthy, they may as well be throwing around the word “green.” Also I included a little information about their website which bombards the viewer with all the information about how they are cutting back in the amount of water they are using and stuff like that, so that you can feel good about buying their product. I think it works as greenwashing.
June 17, 2009
All these foods claim 0g of trans fat but indeed you can still find partially hydrogenated oils in the ingredients list. They are allowed to list 0g for anything under 0.5g. So if you eat two servings of 0.49g you just ate a gram of trans fat without knowing it. More clever marketing with the help of the government. Yes, this includes Frito Lays products. Most of the items with trans fats are Cheese based. Cheetohs, Nacho Cheese Doritos, etc.