• jqubed@lemmy.world
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    3 days ago

    They sure tried advertising it as a health food in the USA 20-ish years ago when it was relatively new to the market—“simple, quality ingredients like hazelnuts, skim milk, and a hint of cocoa.” They were sued for deceptive advertising and had to pay millions of dollars.

    But yeah, one bite or a look at the ingredients and nutrition label should be enough to warn anyone. The first ingredient is sugar and more than 50% of the food’s mass comes from added sugar.

    • chonglibloodsport@lemmy.world
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      3 days ago

      It’s amazing that anyone was fooled by this marketing. It shows you the power of it I guess.

      The first time I tried Nutella I immediately knew what it was: chocolate hazelnut cake frosting. The fact that people slather it on their toast every day seemed as absurd to me as eating cake frosting every day.

      • tempest@lemmy.ca
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        3 days ago

        North America has long had sweet treats as breakfast or early morning food so I’m surprised you’re surprised.

        Things like Danish, donuts, pop tarts, toaster strudel, breakfast cereal… Etc etc

        • BanMe@lemmy.world
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          3 days ago

          Hold up the Dutch straight up put chocolate sprinkles onto buttered toast and you’re coming at exclusively at the US? And Danish were named after somewhere. Strudel… that sounds awfully germanic… I think Europe is gaslighting us. Also I’ve had European milk chocolate, holy shit.

          • teyrnon@sh.itjust.works
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            2 days ago

            The danish aren’t all overweight though. 50% of white people in the US are now. 60% or more of the general population last I checked, and it takes an immigrant on average 7 years to become as overweight as the average American.

            So something is different.

          • ccunning@lemmy.world
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            3 days ago

            I mean we have a cereal that’s openly marketed as just a box full of mini chocolate chip cookies

            • chonglibloodsport@lemmy.world
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              3 days ago

              Everyone knows those cereals are for kids and only as a special treat, not an every day thing.

              If someone wants to have banana Nutella crepes for breakfast once a month I don’t think that’s a big deal. But having toast with Nutella every day (or cookie cereal) is not a normal thing to do.

              • NannerBanner@literature.cafe
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                2 days ago

                Lol, the commercials for said cereal were always literally about everyone saying it was cookies for breakfast, and who doesn’t have the same breakfast every day? If there was a box of cereal, that’s what we were eating until it was gone and then you open the next box of cereal or switch to toast/waffles/pancakes/biscuits/oatmeal until that box is used up, and so on and so forth until it’s time to go back to the grocery store.

                If your parents bought the cookie cereal (and there were apparently enough to keep it on the shelves for years) then you were eating it everyday as a normal thing.

                • chonglibloodsport@lemmy.world
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                  2 days ago

                  Lots of parents I knew as a kid didn’t let their kids have this kind of cereal. They didn’t let their kids drink pop all the time either.

              • grue@lemmy.world
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                2 days ago

                Everyone knows those cereals are for kids and only as a special treat, not an every day thing.

                LOL, no, we really don’t.

    • ctry21@sh.itjust.works
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      2 days ago

      Same in Europe in the late 00s/early 10s anyway - the ads here boasted about it being a good source of slow-release energy to keep you going til lunch