We love a good joke as much as the next person and regularly enjoy The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. However, we don't agree with some of the products he has placed in their "Pantry of Shame." For example, we happen to like Baconnaise! However, we did think that he had a point when it comes to Del Monte's new, individually plastic wrapped bananas. Check out the video segment below. Then we did a bit more digging and found out that these bananas are designed for vending machines and targeted at school programs to replace processed sugar and starch-based snacks. In part, the packaging is designed to increase shelf-life by slowing the ripening process.
The Forbes Corporate Social Responsibility blog went so far as to contact Del Monte and do an in-depth interview about the new "Single Finger Bananas," here's a short excerpt of their response:
Everyone knows that there is an obesity epidemic and healthy eating could be an important step forward to address the health and economic consequences on society. A great example of the positive contribution that the Del Monte CRT [“Controlled Ripening Technology”] single finger bananas is the fact that now school children, when they go to their school vending machine, can choose a banana instead of, let’s say, a chocolate bar or potato chips (which coincidentally also use plastic wrappers).
This is yet another example of how complicated issues of health, the environment, and media have become. What do you think? Is this a good product or rotten fruit?
Picture by Del Monte
| The Daily Show With Jon Stewart | Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c | |||
| Intro - Pantry of Shame | ||||
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