There was a time when Consumers Union, the company behind Consumer Reports, which claims to impartially test products, was a trusted brand.(1) That was before key employees were caught colluding with grifters like Dr. Oz to pick winners and losers in the marketplace.
'GMOs are unproven' just happened to be the anti-science belief that got a Consumer Reports employee hired by Dr. Oz as a 'fact checker' when the formerly esteemed surgeon was exposed (by us, but also others) as promoting unfounded claims about science and health and promoting products if companies that wrote him checks. Like hiring an astrologer to fact check an astrologer, hiring someone who believes in woo and hates science as much as you do is not going to change your thinking.
They haven't changed much in the last nine years. Now the company claims they tested various foods and even though they found no high levels of anything they are still petitioning USDA to ban...well, perhaps everything that isn't made by a company that writes them checks.
The Biden administration has caused food prices to increase 44% since taking office, and Consumer Reports want to make the world even worse for poor children. To save them, of course. 'It's for the children.'
The next time someone tells you America is not doing well, remind them we are so rich that Consumer Reports declared war on...Lunchables. Because some of them have 25% people of a really low Recommended Daily Allowance of salt. And trace levels of chemicals that only agenda-driven statisticians can link to harm.
First off, the RDA on salt is really conservative because food nannies have been going after salt for decades. The science problem that salt mullahs face is that there is no population-level salt data that can be applied clinically. It's the BMI of spices and meaningless individually. None. It is only speculative epidemiology, that high salt intake is a risk factor for another risk factor for actual heart disease.They didn't even find high levels of it, if kids eat three meals a day a meal can be 33% so why declare cultural jihad over 25%?
Part of it may be that most of the country has forgotten Consumer Reports even exists. No one with a brain looks at Consumer Reports claims about products and then buys, they go to real verified reviews on Amazon, because The Wisdom Of Crowds is a far better gauge than hand-picked employees at a small group that stays in business reviewing products they get for free.
Maybe, like with GMOs, they are colluding with a lawyer or celebrity who wants to sue Kraft Heinz. Or maybe they just don't like that food has salt at all, they want it to be as bland as their 'reviews' of toasters. More likely is that they resent that Lunchables can be included in a school lunch program while the products of their organic food friends remain out of reach for all but the wealthy.
NOTE:
(1) Way back when people also believed they could trust CBS News.
