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CNN Live At Daybreak
Nation's Largest Food Maker Going on Diet
Aired July 02, 2003 - 06:50 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: The nation's largest food maker is going on a diet of its own. Kraft says it's cutting the fat in many of its products to help America slim down.
Our favorite nutritionist, Lisa Drayer, of dietwatch.com, joins us live from New York to explain these changes.
What are they, Lisa?
LISA DRAYER, NUTRITIONIST: Hi, Carol.
Yes, they are going to make several changes. Kraft claims that they're going to reduce the portion sizes of their single-sized portions, that is snacks that would appear in a bag, for example. They're going to stop all in school marketing and they're also going to reduce the fat content, possibly by one or two grams, and reduce the transfat -- that's the harmful fats -- in foods. So they are making a lot of changes to help us become healthier.
COSTELLO: Well, some say they would be making those changes to avoid lawsuits since Kraft is in essence owned by Philip Morris, which has changed its name, but...
DRAYER: Exactly.
COSTELLO: ... we'll ignore that for now.
I just wondered, will this be the start of a trend if it works?
DRAYER: You know, it actually, in fact, may be. In fact, some companies have already changed their food products to reflect healthier options. For example, Kellogg's, back in 2000, bought Kashi. That's the line of cereal that contains whole grains. It's low in fat. It's high in fiber and protein. Also, Frito-Lay will soon remove all the trans fats -- these are the harmful fats that don't appear on food labels right now, so we don't even know how much we're eating. A good idea is to look for partially hydrogenated oil.
So the truth is companies are hopefully going to shift, gives us healthier options. But in the meantime, we have to read food labels carefully. And one of the most important things we can do, Carol, is look at the number of servings per container, because a lot of times we think that, you know, because we're eating cookies in a bag or chips in a bag or even an energy bar, who would think of that as two or more servings. But, in fact, sometimes that is the case.
So what you need to do is multiply the number of servings by all of that nutritional information to see exactly what you're putting in your body.
COSTELLO: I understand. It's time consuming, but it's very important.
Let's go back to the companies making changes, though.
DRAYER: Yes?
COSTELLO: I understand McDonald's is doing something, too.
DRAYER: Yes. Exactly. McDonald's will, in the summer, offer fruit instead of fries in its Happy Meals. In fact, McDonald's has made some of these changes internationally. So in some of its other markets throughout the world they do offer these healthier options for food. So that's definitely a good thing.
It's important to go to the Web sites to see the nutritional value of foods. You know, we're very quick to blame restaurants, but, in fact, the nutritional information is available and sometimes there's even these online wizards where you can kind of see how much a particular condiment is adding to your food in terms of calories and fat.
So that is definitely a good thing. And healthier options are not that difficult. If we think about what one serving of vegetables is, Carol, it looks like this. Very small. This is a half a serving of cooked vegetables. A large banana counts as two fruits. So when we say aim for five fruits and vegetables each day, it's really not all that much. It adds up very quickly.
COSTELLO: It does. Good advice.
Lisa Drayer, many thanks, joining us live from New York this morning.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
Aired July 2, 2003 - 06:50 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: The nation's largest food maker is going on a diet of its own. Kraft says it's cutting the fat in many of its products to help America slim down.
Our favorite nutritionist, Lisa Drayer, of dietwatch.com, joins us live from New York to explain these changes.
What are they, Lisa?
LISA DRAYER, NUTRITIONIST: Hi, Carol.
Yes, they are going to make several changes. Kraft claims that they're going to reduce the portion sizes of their single-sized portions, that is snacks that would appear in a bag, for example. They're going to stop all in school marketing and they're also going to reduce the fat content, possibly by one or two grams, and reduce the transfat -- that's the harmful fats -- in foods. So they are making a lot of changes to help us become healthier.
COSTELLO: Well, some say they would be making those changes to avoid lawsuits since Kraft is in essence owned by Philip Morris, which has changed its name, but...
DRAYER: Exactly.
COSTELLO: ... we'll ignore that for now.
I just wondered, will this be the start of a trend if it works?
DRAYER: You know, it actually, in fact, may be. In fact, some companies have already changed their food products to reflect healthier options. For example, Kellogg's, back in 2000, bought Kashi. That's the line of cereal that contains whole grains. It's low in fat. It's high in fiber and protein. Also, Frito-Lay will soon remove all the trans fats -- these are the harmful fats that don't appear on food labels right now, so we don't even know how much we're eating. A good idea is to look for partially hydrogenated oil.
So the truth is companies are hopefully going to shift, gives us healthier options. But in the meantime, we have to read food labels carefully. And one of the most important things we can do, Carol, is look at the number of servings per container, because a lot of times we think that, you know, because we're eating cookies in a bag or chips in a bag or even an energy bar, who would think of that as two or more servings. But, in fact, sometimes that is the case.
So what you need to do is multiply the number of servings by all of that nutritional information to see exactly what you're putting in your body.
COSTELLO: I understand. It's time consuming, but it's very important.
Let's go back to the companies making changes, though.
DRAYER: Yes?
COSTELLO: I understand McDonald's is doing something, too.
DRAYER: Yes. Exactly. McDonald's will, in the summer, offer fruit instead of fries in its Happy Meals. In fact, McDonald's has made some of these changes internationally. So in some of its other markets throughout the world they do offer these healthier options for food. So that's definitely a good thing.
It's important to go to the Web sites to see the nutritional value of foods. You know, we're very quick to blame restaurants, but, in fact, the nutritional information is available and sometimes there's even these online wizards where you can kind of see how much a particular condiment is adding to your food in terms of calories and fat.
So that is definitely a good thing. And healthier options are not that difficult. If we think about what one serving of vegetables is, Carol, it looks like this. Very small. This is a half a serving of cooked vegetables. A large banana counts as two fruits. So when we say aim for five fruits and vegetables each day, it's really not all that much. It adds up very quickly.
COSTELLO: It does. Good advice.
Lisa Drayer, many thanks, joining us live from New York this morning.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
