Originally published December 5 2010
Sesame Street rolls out superfood muppets sponsored by Merck
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor
(NaturalNews) Now even Sesame Street is jumping on the superfoods bandwagon by introducing four new muppets called "the Superfoods." They're being rolled out next week under the claim that Sesame Street is tackling "food insecurity" by teaching kids how to eat well on a budget. There's just one problem with all this: Three out of the four new superfood muppets aren't superfoods.
The new superfood muppets are a banana, a block of cheese, a whole wheat hamburger bun and a stalk of broccoli.
Gee, if this is Sesame Street's idea of superfoods, I'd hate to see what they think might quality as junk food! (For the record, broccoli is a superfood, but cheese certainly isn't. And a wheat bread bun isn't either. Bananas are a healthy food but not usually considered a super food.)
Not coincidentally, this muppet selection looks a lot like the USDA's food pyramid which has nothing to do with promoting health and everything to do with promoting the financial interests of the meat, dairy and grain producers. But hey, at least Sesame Street didn't feature any processed meat in their superfood muppets. Not yet anyway.
Merck's influence
It turns out that a lot of this may have been influenced by Merck. Yes, the Big Pharma giant that makes vaccines, cholesterol drugs and other pharmaceuticals. The Merck Company Foundation sponsored this project, and Richard T. Clark, the CEO and chairman of Merck, is going to be present in Washington D.C. to help announce these new muppets.
So let's see: We have the CEO of one of the largest drug companies in the world telling a non-profit children's education show how to teach nutrition to kids... What's wrong with this picture?
We already know that drug companies like Merck profit from sickness and disease, not health and nutrition. There is absolutely no financial incentive for Merck or any other drug company to teach children how to stay healthy.
Perhaps that's why all the real superfoods are missing from this Sesame Street lineup: Where are the berries, sprouts and fresh vegetables juices? Where's the "spirulina" muppet?
Because, let's face it: To call a whole-wheat sandwich bun and a block of cheese "superfoods" is beyond ignorant. It's moronic. It's laughable.
What this new "superfood" muppet lineup really shows is that Sesame Street has sold out to corporate interests and is now teaching children how to stay trapped in a system of sick care that generates profits for the pharmaceutical industry. Consuming cheese and sandwich buns is not going to make kids healthy -- it's going to promote heart disease, diabetes and obesity. A lot of the so-called "wheat bread" sold in grocery stores, by the way, is sweetened with high-fructose corn syrup. Check the labels yourself.
The sad, sorry state of nutritional knowledge at Sesame Street
Over the years, Sesame Street has played an important and valuable role in society by teaching children basic academics in a fun, playful way. Heck, I remember watching the show from time to time as a kid, and it was briefly entertaining.
But it is precisely because of Sesame Street's huge reach that it has an obligation to get its facts straight on superfoods. To promote cheese and sandwich bread as "superfood" is truly laughable, and it only demonstrates to the world that Sesame Street needs a little education itself.
We need a nutritional Sesame Street for the Sesame Street executives, it seems, who are as ignorant about nutrition as a four-year-old who hasn't yet learned how to count to ten.
Even worse, to partner with a drug company in the launch of such an endeavor is inherently unwise. Merck is the very same company that can't wait to vaccinate all the children watching Sesame Street and hit them with high-priced pharmaceuticals when they grow up and have more serious diseases because they've been living on cheese, processed foods and animal products.
To think that you can come up with a sound nutrition education program by partnering with a drug company is pure madness. Yet that's what Sesame Street has done here.
Maybe they should have realized that if you want to teach nutrition to children, you should talk to a nutritionist and not a vaccine manufacturer.
What's next with all this? Will Bert and Ernie go get seasonal flu shots manufactured by Merck and then tell the kids that vaccines are good nutrition, too?
Read the official Sesame Street propaganda (press release) at: http://www.sesameworkshop.org/initiatives/fo...
Why the NaturalNews message is healthier than Sesame Street
My role as NaturalNews editor is not merely to criticize what's wrong with things but to offer better examples of how to do things right.
Two years ago, I created the Super Food Bowl educational video that featured superfoods squaring off against junk foods in a football game. That video was designed to teach children the health benefits of real superfoods in a fun, entertaining way.
You can watch that video right now at:
http://naturalnews.tv/v.asp?v=092500F34147F5...
It's a far more nutritious approach than the new "superfood muppets" from Sesame Street. It's based on real nutritional science rather than the influence of a large drug company like Merck.
Keep this in mind when you think about Sesame Street from now on: This is a children's educational organization that, in my opinion, has partnered with one of the most evil corporations on the planet. Maybe next they'll teach kids about farming with a program created by Monsanto, too.
It really makes me question the Sesame Street agenda. Are they trying to teach children, or are they working more to manipulate them to become future customers of the sick-care giants like drug companies and health insurance companies?
These new Sesame Street "superfood muppets" are an insult to the intention and genius of the original Sesame Street creators who only sought to help improve the lives of children. But today, with sellout programs like these fraudulent superfood muppets, it seems as if the Sesame Street agenda has shifted to promoting the interests of big business at the expense of childrens' health.
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