Snack Foods

Borden Inc. said Wednesday that it is getting out of snack foods, jams and seafood in a much-anticipated restructuring that will lead to a dividend cut and $650 million in charges for the diversified foods giant. Wall Street analysts generally praised the moves but also expressed disappointment, saying the company did not go far enough to turn itself around. Investors evidently were even less impressed. Borden's stock lost $2.375 to end at $15.

Grocery stores in Northern California will be among the first in the nation to carry snacks made with olestra, a controversial no-fat ingredient that Procter & Gamble Co. has spent $500 million and 30 years to develop. PepsiCo Inc.'s Frito-Lay division on Tuesday said it is starting to ship fat-free versions of its Doritos, Ruffles and Lay's potato chips and corn chips to stores in San Francisco, Sacramento and Seattle.

Back in the 1970s, hamburgers were thin, soda bottles were small enough to drain in a few swigs and a candy bar was a bar and not a brick. These days, a bakery muffin can weigh in at half a pound, a plate of pasta can deliver a day's worth of calories and a chocolate-chip cookie can be bigger than your hand. America's taste for big portions has led us down a dangerous path. Two-thirds of us are overweight or obese.

A new round of tests showing high levels of a suspected carcinogen in French fries, potato chips and other starchy snack foods is throwing a scare into the food industry. Fearing panic among consumers and slumping sales, industry officials are conducting their own tests and putting out statements intended to calm fears that acrylamide, a substance that causes cancer in animals, might pose a human health risk in food.

In my childhood, Hostess snack foods loomed as the symbol of freedom. Freedom from the cruel health food regimen and ethnic dietary peculiarities of my keepers. Freedom to eat and dance and flirt and wear loafers and be cute and silly and utterly American. While I trudged the three blocks to Zeman's bakery for a loaf of salted and seeded rye wrapped in brown paper, I knew that happy, free girls were out there digging into plastic polka-dotted bags of Wonder Bread, selecting two perfect slices as soft as clouds.

NO longer satisfied by three meals a day, Americans have become accustomed to noshing whenever hunger hits. On any given day, about a quarter of Americans skip breakfast and 1 in 8 skip lunch, but 90% treat themselves to a snack, according to the International Deli-Dairy-Bakery Assn. In 2002, a survey by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that about 86% of Americans admit to eating between meals on any given day.

This year your guests can have their cake and eat it, too. And so can you. You can still serve low-calorie fish or chicken and salads with triple-fiber bread along with high-calorie snacks, alcoholic beverages and, not one, but two desserts, just the way you've always done. But this year it will be OK. Up to now, Americans (particularly Southern Californians) have been wracked with confusion over their schizophrenic eating behavior.

The nation's most famous broccoli shipment was welcomed at the White House Monday by Barbara Bush, her faithful dog, Millie, and scores of White House reporters, who milled around the dark green stalks looking for news. As Mrs. Bush surveyed the scene and tried, without success, to keep a straight face, George Dunlop, president of the Washington-based United Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Assn., waxed metaphorical.