Eat your Cheerios, Hispanics told

By Timothy Pratt (contact)

Tuesday, Jan. 29, 2008 | 2 a.m.

The pamphlet “Camino Magico,” or the “Magical Path,” urges Hispanics to eat processed foods. It’s being distributed heavily in the Las Vegas Valley.

The Incas had their Splenda and the Mayans, their Cheerios.

Not really.

But if you go soon to a half-dozen Albertsons in the Las Vegas Valley’s Hispanic neighborhoods you’ll find 100,000 pamphlets titled “Camino Magico,” or the “Magical Path” — chock-full of “traditional” Latin American foods such as Silk brand soy milk, Knorr brand chicken bouillon cubes, Mission brand tortillas, Goya brand spices ... and Splenda!

The pamphlet, according to Oldways, the Boston group that produced it, is “dedicated to improving Latino health through traditional foods and lifestyles.” Oldways says it is sending one-tenth of the pamphlets it is distributing nationwide to the valley because of the region’s large Hispanic population, estimated at more than 450,000.

The stakes are high because 70 percent of U.S. Hispanics are overweight or obese, leading many to suffer conditions such as diabetes, according to Luis Fernando Velez, assistant professor at the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio’s Institute for Health Promotion Research.

At first blush, the pamphlet seems sincere in wanting to help tackle these problems. It’s in English and Spanish. It has a brightly colored cover of a simply dressed, raven-haired mother with one hand on a shopping cart and another raised toward the camino ahead. Her son stands ahead of her, looking down the path bordered by earthy beans, a tower of yellow corn, a cheery green plantain and a friendly orange pumpkin.

But inside, the marketing threatens to cancel out both the tradition and the nutrition, several experts said.

Suggestions for breakfast, lunch, dinner and snacks all include photos of specific brands. Another raven-haired beauty named Sarita appears in a photo at the foot of each page, revealing such “secrets” as “I love Silk soy milk” and “I use Splenda.”

That led Estevan Flores, chief of population science and cancer control at the Nevada Cancer Institute, to call the pamphlet “too self-serving to be as useful as it could have been, with the prevalence of brands and processed foods.”

Velez said the pamphlet could lead some to make poor nutritional decisions.

He noted that the canned and bottled foods featured are higher in sodium than their fresh counterparts. Sodium increases risks of hypertension and obesity, he said. He wondered about choosing sponge cake and rice pudding — with Splenda — as suggested snacks, instead of fruits and vegetables.

He also pointed to the MSG-laden bouillon cubes and spice packets featured in several meals.

“If they were more sincere about this, we’d have more fresh foods,” Velez said.

Flores said the photos of cans, bottles and packages stem from a well-known characteristic of the Hispanic shopper: brand loyalty. “They know that once they try the products, they’ll probably keep buying,” he said.

Kezia Frayjo, the project’s media and program director, said others have brought up the subject of branding. “We struggle with this,” she said. “If we could fund this without using brand names, we would.”

She said the project “screens the products to see if they’re relatively healthy.” As for the cultural significance of products such as Cheerios, she said the pamphlet considered traditions from pre-Columbian times on, but had to consider what she calls “the realities of modern life.”

Dun Gifford, president and founder of Oldways, said the project also takes its approach from research in behavior modification that shows people don’t make changes all at once.

“If people are eating 100 percent junk food now and in a couple of months they’re eating 50 percent, that’s something,” Gifford said.

Angie Lopez, a local registered dietitian, called the branding of nutrition and culture displayed in the pamphlet a sort of necessary evil.

“No nonprofit could afford to buy a nice, colorful brochure like this,” she said.

Lopez said the main issue for Hispanics in maintaining their health is the frequency of meals and the sizes of portions, and that the pamphlet should pay more attention to that fact.

Velez, saying the pamphlet was questionable when it comes to nutrition, also questioned its cultural authenticity, an important issue for immigrants as they assimilate U.S. traditions.

“Rescuing traditions would mean returning to home cooking based on fresh ingredients,” he said.