You would think that even in these health-conscious times, no-one would have the nerve to make such claims on the telly any more. No-one, unfortunately, banked on Nutella. Nutella is perhaps the most important gift that Italy has given the world, being the sweet treat that is largely excusable to eat at breakfast. But it takes a lot of a cheek to suggest it is part of a ‘balanced breakfast’. The product’s main ingredients are sugar and oil, and a jar of the stuff is a third fat. All those hazelnuts tumbling out of the jar you see on telly? They constitute 13% of what the child is shoving in their breakfast holes.
Amidst this sugar-induced headache is a mother suggestively thrusting her hips in a domestic-goddess-meets-Asda-George style, while tapping her mouth with a knife (you would think that health and safety might have stepped in at this point, but they probably passed out when they noticed that the two-storey building didn’t have any walls or stairs). ‘Hmmmm’, you can effectively see speech-bubbled above her head, ‘what you feed the kids?’ Didn’t you know, mother? Each jar of Nutella has over six hazelnuts in it! Feed that to your child and it’ll get a vital dose of minerals. And a diabetic coma. But focus on the minerals.
How exactly do Nutella get away with suggesting they’re a healthy option? It’s all in the word ‘balanced’. When I was a kid, breakfast was toast OR cereal. In Nutella world, you get both. If Nutella is balanced with the cereal, what the heck is the cereal made of? Wheatgrass flakes? Gillian McKeith Nuggets? Anti-Sugar-O’s? It’s akin to suggesting that a bout of violent diarrhoea is healthy when balanced with a subsequent dose of lost electrolytes.
