Kind Snacks dumps 50,000 pounds of sugar in Times Square to prove a point

Kind, a snack company known for its whole ingredient, healthy snack bars, is waging a war on sugar-laden snacks by dumping tons (and we mean tons) of sugar in New York City’s Times Square.

They’re doing this to raise awareness on sugar consumption, which has undoubtedly gotten out of hand here in the United States.

The extreme weight of the sugar being dumped is meant to represent of the amount of added sugar that American children consume every five minutes. That’s right: Five minutes is all it takes for the American diet to vacuum up all that sugar. Yet it’s taking Kind over five hours to haul the sugar into Times Square.

The mound is set to be three stories tall and 24 feet wide and will be surrounded by alarming signage flaunting alarming sugar statistics. For example, one might read: “Children in the US are eating 4.7 billion pounds of added sugar every year. That would cover 1,740 football fields.” Or: “Children in the US are eating 13.1 million pounds of added sugar every day. That would fill 273 yellow school buses.”

Shocking statistics, but that’s the reality of America’s diet: sugar-loaded and brimming with excess, from additives to calories. Sugars are being added in product after product, disguising themselves with confusing titles like “dextrose,” “corn syrup,” “fructose,” and more.

Kind is launching this stunt to promote their new line of snacks, which they claim to be healthier than the leading fruit snacks parading as a “healthy” option. The leading snack has a nutritional profile that parallels the nutrition of gummy bears — sparse in nutrients, to say the least. Kind claims its Fruit Bites will be different, sweetened with only natural sugars from fruit and nothing else.

In previous years, Kind has received criticism for marketing their snacks as “healthy” despite the high sugar and fat content inside — the Food and Drug Administration at one point asked the company to remove the word “healthy” from its labeling. However, this request was withdrawn after the FDA took a closer look at Kind’s products, which are made of all-natural — though sometimes fatty and sugary — ingredients. But aren’t nuts and honey better options for our diets than corn oil and corn syrup?

The event is a spectacular sight and a clear message to consumers to become more aware of added sugars lurking in their favorite snack foods. For even healthier snack options than anything packaged, we recommend you try something healthy and homemade.