Kellogg Bows to Pressure from Weirdos

So, the litigation-threatening wankers are at it again. Not long ago, they were threatening McDonald’s with lawsuits for making us fat; now they’re threatening Kellogg for making our kids fat. Like they even care about our kids! These weenies are merely fronts for the plaintiffs’ bar. Let’s go after a big company and make money for all the pissant lawyers, shall we?

They want Kellogg to disassociate their cereals from cartoon characters and other things that kids like. And they want Kellogg to reduce the sugar content of their cereals. Or they’ll sue.

Now, I can’t say that I like sugary cereal, and I don’t think reducing sugar intake is a bad idea. However, I also don’t think this move will serve the intended purpose. Also, I think that if kids now succeed in bullying their parents into buying the cereal with the nice picture of Shrek on the box, they’ll also later succeed in bullying their parents to spoon some extra sugar on their reduced sugar cereal. Thus, this lame, thinly veiled effort to squeeze some money out of Kellogg is predestined to fail miserably. Kellogg, fearing a huge lawsuit, has responded with a token effort to comply with demands, and our kids will continue to get fatter.

After all, how long have Kellogg’s Frosted Flakes, Froot Loops, and Sugar Corn Pops been on the market? Since I was a kid, and that’s a long, long time. The cereal stays the same but kids keep getting fatter. Where’s the correlation? Why not blame the entertainment industry as well, for providing greater opportunities for indolence? Is all this because we can’t admit that we cannot control our kids and wish to blame others for our ineffectual parenting? Well, maybe we don’t, but the tort happy litigators see it as a grand opportunity for generating revenue for themselves.

In this Wall Street Journal article, the Kellogg response is explained:

Kellogg Co. plans new nutritional standards for its popular brands such as Pop Tarts, Fruit Loops and Apple Jacks. But if the company’s test kitchens can’t match the taste, Kellogg said it will leave the recipes alone and simply stop marketing such products to children under 12.

The health blogist in our local rag thinks this is a GRRRREAT idea. I think she’s nuts. I’m wondering if she has any kids of her own. I wrote a similar comment to her blog, but the comment hasn’t appeared on The Sentinel’s website yet. Perhaps it never will. Thus, this Turkey was inspired to scratch out his thoughts here.

That “GRRRRREAT” reference is to Tony the Tiger, a much revered cartoon character who has graced the boxes of Kellogg’s Frosted Flakes for damn near half a century. Tony better not bite the dust. He’s a veritable icon.

Come on, parents! Are you so stupid that you need the Naderites to tell you what to feed your kids? If you are, then, fine. You’re probably too stupid to listen to anybody’s advice, anyhow, and you don’t need to be making choices for yourselves. It ain’t Kellogg’s cereals that are making your kids fat—it’s you! And how about the rest of you? What’s your excuse for ceding the prerogatives of parenthood to the plaintiff bar?

So, here we go again. We have to spoil it for the rest of us just because some of us are stupid. Let’s just set our sights low so we won’t be disappointed—dumb everything down so even the idiots can be guaranteed safe conduct through life.

What’s that you say? It’s about the chillllllllllldren? (Invoke Neal Boortz when you say that word.) No, it’s not about the children. It’s about adults playing adult games: lawyers wanting to make big bucks by sucking up public sympathy from people like our health blogist mentioned above, stupid parents who cannot control their kids, and the rest of us, who sit back and watch this happen.

What’s next? A legal ban on sidewalks because kids sometimes scrape their knees on them?