On the football circuit, Tom Brady is already a hero. The star athlete is a four-time Super Bowl champion and all-star quarterback. But recent Tom Brady, has won a victory of another sort – he tackled the commercial food industry and in the eyes of many he won.
In a recent interview on the Massachusetts radio station WEEI , he attacked Coca-Cola and Frosted Flakes calling them “poison.” He criticized the brands, saying that they’re only loved because we’re told we should love them through marketing. At the time, he was discussing the recent Boston Magazine story on his body coach and business partner Alex Guerrero. In 2004, Guerrero was shut down by the Federal Trade Commission for claiming his Supreme Greens could effectively treat everything from diabetes and obesity to cancer and AIDS.
Brady defended Guerrero, with whom he started the TB12 Sports Therapy Center and then launched into his views on processed junk food and soda, saying:
“I think we’ve been lied to by a lot of food companies over the years, by a lot of beverage companies over the years. But we still [believe] it… We believe that Frosted Flakes is a food…
You’ll probably go out and drink Coca-Cola and think ‘Oh yeah, that’s no problem.’ Why? Because they pay lots of money for advertisements to think that you should drink Coca-Cola for a living…
I totally disagree with that. And when people do that, I think that’s quackery. And the fact that they can sell that to kids? I mean, that’s poison for kids…
When you go to the Super Bowl, who are the sponsors? That’s the education that we get. That’s what we get brainwashed to believe; that all these things are just normal food groups, and this is what you should eat.”
He also made his views on holistic medicine very clear. Brady blew out his knee in 2008, and claims the only thing that saved his career were the holistic health strategies taught by Guerrero
“Our approach to medicine is, let’s wait until you get sick. Wait until you get hurt, and then we’ll treat you. Well, how about trying to find ways to prevent that from even happening?
I think it’s a much better approach to medicine… Now you guys may think I’m full of crap, but I’m the proof, what you see on the field.”
Brady’s comments caught media wildfire making headlines in The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Time Magazine, People Magazine, and many other news outlets, The comments are particularly painful to companies like Kellogg, Coca-Cola, and Pepsi because they are all struggling to prop up sagging sales.
This year, Coca-Cola reported a five percent drop in revenue for the third quarter, and over the past six months, Kellogg insiders have sold more than 60 percent of their shares in the company, signalling that Kellogg’s stock prices may soon go into free-fall. Coca-Cola failed miserably in its rebuttal trying to convince anyone that was listening that their beverages “are safe and can be enjoyed as part of a balanced lifestyle.”
So what is Coca-Cola trying to say? That as long as you’re eating healthy food, drinking sugary junk water, which has zero health benefits, is not going to do us harm? If the “balance” the junk food industry is talking about about is the balance between harmful foods and healthy foods that’s not the kind of balance that really make for a healthy lifestyle.
When it comes to real foods, maintaining “balance” is not really an issue. When you eat real food it’s all beneficial and the last things a person has to monitor is a ratio of broccoli to brussel sprouts, or worry about whether you’re balancing your water intake with some other beverage.
Food matters – it either supports health or it doesn’t. Coke as well as other sugary junk water and has zero health benefits and should never be construed as an acceptable part of any healthy diet.
As for Kellogg’s, most cereal’s are junk food and they contain questionable ingredients. if you consume Frosted Flakes, you’re eating glyphosate-laden genetically engineered corn and a seriously unhealthy dose of sugar. Even if you get some iron and B vitamins along with it, eating any one of the vast majority of highly processed breakfast cereal can do more harm than good.
To protect our children, we need to teach them about nutrition and we need heroes like Tom Brady for standing up for kids by calling junk food exactly what it is – poison.