The Heart Foundations Tick Future

Yesterday, nutrition networks on social media were flooded with posts linking to a survey put out by the Heart Foundation of Australia asking people for their thoughts on their “TICK” program. Doing my duty, I filled in this survey and told them exactly what I thought of their tick, but since completing the survey, my mind has been wandering back to this survey and what it is really all about.

The conclusion I have drawn is this… The Heart Foundation have come under SO much flack lately, not only with their outdated nutrition advice, but for their “TICK” appearing on SO many unhealthy products that they are in damage control mode. I believe that the HF have known for some time that their TICK has little meaning to people anymore, and that they need to find a way get rid of it. It’s no wonder the TICK has no real impact when companies can pay BUCKETLOADS of money to have the logo placed on products like Milo breakfast cereal, party pies, margarines and other oil spreads, sugar-filled “light” yoghurt tubs, fruit & vegetable juice bottles… and the list goes on!

So, what do they do? They ask the public to fill in a cleverly created survey to make people think their voices are being heard. All this survey achieves, is it gives them ideas on how to gently put the tick out of its misery. I am just picturing future press releases and media campaigns that go something like…..

“We asked you and you told us. There is too much nutrition confusion out there on the internet and our simple TICK program doesn’t explain which foods are healthy as it used to, so we have decided to phase out our Heart Healthy Tick .”

You now feel like you played a part in ridding Australia of this tick.

Problem is, The Heart Foundation relies heavily on income from their Tick program to fund itself. If they ditch the tick, where will they make up the loss of revenue?

My belief is that this whole “survey” thing is just a perfectly planned PR exercise to (a) get rid of the tick which was terminally ill in the first place, and (b) bring in a new system so charge big processed food companies even more money to display the new system/logo/icon on….. something like this maybe?

Introducing the new : DODECAGON HEALTH SEAL

“You asked for it, and we listened. You wanted a more simple system to understand healthy food so we bring you the DODECAGON HEALTH SEAL. Why the Dodecagon? It is a 12 sided shape, and each side represents one of the the 12 stringent criteria that has to be met for a product to display this seal of health”.

Though what it would really mean is….

“The TICK program was so old and out of date that fewer and fewer companies were wanting to pay us lots and lots of money to put it on their highly refined and processed food packages. So we took the Tick to the marketing vet and had it put down and now have this all new and improved DODECAGON HEALTH SEAL program. This new system has nothing at all to do with 12 approval criteria, but actually represents the number of ZERO’s we hope to find on the end of the income/profit figures each year from this program. It will still be based on old and outdated nutritional advice, and will still be targeted at massive food companies with millions of dollars to throw at us instead of actual nutritional health, but you will believe it’s a much healthier program because its new!”

This is my prediction. The Heart Foundation can’t get rid of a health-approval program entirely because it can’t afford to lose all that income. Something will have to take its place, but it won’t matter what it is, it will still be based on poor nutritional advice, and will still be found approving foods which should never be labeled as “healthy”.

Want to know how to eat healthy and heart smart? Just eat real food!