Snack Food

A medium-sized popcorn and medium soda at the nation's largest movie chain pack the nutritional equivalent of three Quarter Pounders topped with 12 pats of butter, according to a report released today by the advocacy group Center for Science in the Public Interest. The group's second look at movie theater concessions -- the last was 15 years ago -- found little had changed in a decade and a half, despite theaters' attempts to reformulate. CSPI bought multiple servings of popcorn from the three largest movie chains, Regal Entertainment Group, AMC and Cinemark, and had them analyzed in an independent lab. It found that a Regal medium popcorn -- 20 cups -- contains 1,200 calories, 60 grams of saturated fat, and 980 milligrams of sodium.

Procter & Gamble Co. has nixed its deal to sell its Pringles potato chips business to struggling Diamond Foods Inc., agreeing instead to a $2.7-billion all-cash offer from Kellogg Co. The transaction, which is expected to close this summer, will allow P&G to exit the snack-food business and gives cereal maker Kellogg a popular addition to its line of snacks. Pringles — stacked, crispy chips served out of distinctive long canisters — racked up $1.5 billion in sales last year and are sold in more than 140 countries.

It won't get you to Europe at half-fare, but the snack food industry is having it's own version of airline price wars. There's a potato chip price war going on and the consumer is the one who benefits. The average price of chips has dropped by a dime a pound, with some companies lowering prices by as much as 30%. This price break is seen most often as one-time "specials" or cents-off coupons than as a change in the list price.

The next time you're sitting across from someone, eating with them, take note: Are you both taking bites at the same time? You might be, a study finds. Researchers from the Netherlands and Toronto looked at eating behaviors among 70 pairs of young women who ate a 20-minute meal together. Would dining simultaneously cause their bites to be in sync as they mimicked each other's actions? The bites of the women in the pairs were noted. Mimicked bites were considered those that were taken within five seconds of each other.

Justice Department watchdogs are sniffing around the potato chip and cheese puff aisle of your grocery store. The agency's antitrust division has opened an investigation of the salty snack food industry and is asking if Frito-Lay Inc. is gaining an unfair advantage by gobbling up shelf space in grocery stores.

In response to a new state sales tax on snack foods, the Anaheim Union High School District will raise the price that students pay for chips, cookies, sodas and cakes by 5 cents. Barry Sackin, the district's food service director, said the added nickel will raise $63,000 for the district, while its expected tax bill from the state will be $57,000. But Sackin said officials decided to impose the 5-cent increase rather than have cafeteria workers add the 7.

PepsiCo Inc.'s Frito-Lay unit will begin using corn oil to make Doritos, Tostitos and Cheetos snack foods as more people seek to eliminate harmful fatty acids from their diets. The switch from soybean oil, which contains higher levels of trans fatty acids, will be made next year. PepsiCo shares fell 43 cents to $36.77 on the New York Stock Exchange.

Four-year-old Ylan Isaac earnestly dumps mulch into a big plastic funnel, then pours it out. He dumps and pours, dumps and pours, in his favorite spot in the new playground at his preschool. Here, "you get to play with dirt," he says. Playing is exactly what PepsiCo Inc. had in mind when it decided to fund the playground at the CentroNia preschool in Washington, the first of 13 that the beverage and snack-food company plans to build around the country as part of its campaign to promote exercise.

Some doctors use inkblots to help their patients reveal their personalities. Dr. Alan R. Hirsch uses snack foods. In his recent study, "Snack Food Hedonics and Personality," Hirsch, a neurologist and director of the Smell & Taste Treatment and Research Foundation in Chicago, correlated junk food choice with hedonics (the branch of psychology that deals with pleasant and unpleasant feelings) and came up with a list of personality traits associated with several types of savory snacks.

Legislation to repeal the new state sales tax on snack foods, newspapers and magazines was dealt a sharp setback Monday in the Assembly Revenue and Taxation Committee. Two bills to repeal the new taxes--one that would replace the lost revenues with an increase in cigarette taxes and one that would substitute a new oil tax--were defeated by lopsided margins. Opponents included Gov. Pete Wilson, lobbyists for tobacco companies, business groups, oil companies and lawmakers from both parties.

Tiger's Den, the student-run snack bar at South Pasadena High School, has watched its profit plummet by more than half this year after a law banned junk food sales in California public schools and forced it to yank its best-seller, AriZona ice teas. The shop is open 30 minutes a day during the school lunch break, and it has made about $6,000 in profit this year. That's compared with $14,000 at this point last year. The student managers blame the law's July 1, 2009, deadline, by which time high schools had to exorcise sodas, including diet varieties, and other sugary drinks.

A medium-sized popcorn and medium soda at the nation's largest movie chain pack the nutritional equivalent of three Quarter Pounders topped with 12 pats of butter, according to a report released today by the advocacy group Center for Science in the Public Interest. The group's second look at movie theater concessions -- the last was 15 years ago -- found little had changed in a decade and a half, despite theaters' attempts to reformulate. CSPI bought multiple servings of popcorn from the three largest movie chains, Regal Entertainment Group, AMC and Cinemark, and had them analyzed in an independent lab. It found that a Regal medium popcorn -- 20 cups -- contains 1,200 calories, 60 grams of saturated fat, and 980 milligrams of sodium.

Links found by researchers between snack foods and obesity in poor communities are prompting new calls for more regulation of convenience stores in South Los Angeles. The proposed new regulations under discussion are an outgrowth and expansion of last year's city restrictions on new fast-food restaurants in a 32-square-mile area of South Los Angeles. The area is home to about 500,000 residents, including those who live in West Adams, Baldwin Hills and Leimert Park. Motivated by new data focusing on convenience stores, civic activists and a City Council member favor limiting the development of new convenience stores.

"Sin taxes" on cigarettes have turned out to be the most effective weapon in the campaign to reduce smoking. Why not try it on Flamin' Hot Cheetos, vanilla Coke and Twinkies? With increasing vigor, public health experts and think tanks are calling for extra taxes on foods and drinks that are heavy in calories and light on nutrition. New York Gov. David Paterson proposed an 18% soda tax last year as a budget-balancing measure, only to abandon it three months later in the face of stiff public opposition.

The company that sells Little Debbie snacks announced a recall of peanut butter crackers Sunday because of a potential link to a deadly salmonella outbreak. The voluntary recall by McKee Foods Corp. of Collegedale, Tenn., came one day after the government advised consumers to avoid cookies, cakes, ice cream and other foods with peanut butter until officials learn more about the contamination. The South Bend Chocolate Co.

Spurred by a tough economy that has more consumers searching for store-brand bargains, 7-Eleven Inc. is launching a line of private-label snack foods and treats. The 7-Select line will begin with 32 convenience store staples, including cookies, candies, nuts, chips and beef jerky. The company, which has 7,600 stores in the U.S. and 35,000 worldwide, hopes to expand that to 180 items by spring. Even before this year's high-profile economic woes, private-label products had become a strong category for many food retailers, with Wal-Mart, Target and others launching or expanding their own lines.

Kraft Foods Inc. said Wednesday that it would stop advertising products such as Oreo cookies and Kool-Aid beverages to children younger than 12 as it works to deflect criticism that such foods contribute to childhood obesity. The move means ads for some of Kraft's best-known snack foods and sugary cereals will no longer appear during television shows such as cartoons, which are viewed primarily by children ages 6 to 11.

Forget the baked, not fried, jalapeno-raspberry wafers. Pass the old-fashioned chips and pretzels, please. Americans are avoiding the fancy, sometimes bizarre, flavor combinations and munching on plain packaged snacks, such as potato chips that make no bones about having lots of fat and salt. Why? Because they taste good. Two out of three manufacturers expect to introduce new products this year, about the same as last year.

Hostess Twinkies are becoming the latest product remade and repackaged into 100-calorie snack packs, a product some analysts say could do well given that more people are packing their own lunches in the slumping economy. The maker of the golden yellow, creme-filled cake has launched "Twinkie Bites" nationwide. It's also introducing a snack pack featuring strawberry cupcakes as it extends the 100-calorie pack line originally aimed at women who wanted to snack more sensibly. Hostess launched its 100-calorie cupcakes in 2007 but held off on making a version of the Twinkie because the 150-calorie product was a favorite overall, said David Leavitt, vice president of snack marketing at Hostess owner Interstate Bakeries Corp.

Nagging by parents, teachers, doctors and just about every other grown-up hasn't rid school campuses of junk food. But even fifth-graders agree a new federal program just might help. The Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Snack Program doesn't nag. It provides money so that schools can give students the food everyone has been saying they need to eat in order to combat obesity, malnutrition and their attendant ills.