My Buddy and Me

Warning -- Satire -- April Fools Post

I have a sheepish confession to make: until recently, I had a tapeworm, and that's why I'm lean.

In 2006, I took a trip to Mexico with a few friends. We often traveled through rural areas, and of course sampled the local cuisine wherever we went. In many parts of Mexico, pork is an important food. Some of it may have been a bit undercooked.

At the time, my interest in food and health was growing, and I was making many changes to my diet. I was glad to see the chubbiness around my neck and waist begin to disappear. The diet was working! Or so I thought...

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New Position with Nestl�

Warning -- Satire -- April Fool's Post

I'm happy to announce that I've accepted a Product Research and Development position with Nestl� Foods.  Nestl� is known for its skillful application of 'neuromarketing'-- using neuroscience to enhance product development and sales-- and the company recruited me for my background in neuroscience and food reward.

As Whole Health Source readers know well, food reward has a major impact on food selection and consumption, and therefore it has huge potential as a product development strategy.  Although product development by the food industry has always relied to some extent on a basic understanding of food reward, corporations still lag far behind the cutting edge of food reward research, and they are therefore missing out on a major opportunity to drive repeat purchase and consumption behavior and increase total sale volume.  I plan to leverage science-corporate synergy to develop food product solutions that people LOVE*.

Even more exciting, Nestl� has asked me to lead a strategic partnership initiative with Coca-Cola to utilize neuromarketing to tailor beverage product development specifically for children, who have a somewhat different set of reward criteria than adults.  We're excited to develop product solutions that kids LOVE* even more than current offerings, by scientifically designing new combinations of flavors, sweeteners, and totally safe habit-forming drugs such as caffeine.

Both companies have been very responsive to my nutritional concerns about processed foods, and so we're working together to make healthier products.  Here are some of the changes we're discussing:

• Adding vitamin C and cod liver oil to chocolate.
• Replacing a portion (1.7%) of the sugar in beverages with stevia across the board.
• Stealthily decreasing the portion size of beverages.  To do this, we'll increase the thickness of the plastic bottles so the exterior of the bottle is the same size, but the actual beverage content is reduced by 0.2 oz.
• Getting these healthy snacks and beverages back into schools where kids can enjoy them!

One of the first things we discussed is getting the advertising department at Nestl� to write guest posts for Whole Health Source.  This will be a fun way for WHS readers to stay informed of current Nestl� products and what we have coming down the pipeline!

April Fools!!!!!!


* Learned Obedience Via Eating

Are Animal Crackers Paleo?

Warning -- Satire -- April Fool's Post

Every child loves animal crackers, those sweet and crunchy animal-shaped biscuits. But are they compatible with a Paleo diet? Some people might think they already know the answer, but consider this: our ancestors evolved on the African savanna, eating the plants and animals found there. Inside each box of animal crackers is an assortment of tiny savanna creatures such as giraffes and elephants.

To get to the bottom of this, I interviewed Robert Pearson, CEO of Animal Cracker Products Inc., who explained to me how these crackers are made.

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