Are you one of the millions of Americans hell bent on putting this monster of a company, and its peers, in their place? There’s now an app for that. In fact, Buycott, which launched this month to much consumer excitement, will help you boycott products from brands you’ve no interest in supporting. So many consumers want to vote with their dollars, but because of the tangled web weaved by mergers and company ownership, few people know that when they innocently buy a box of Duncan Hines cake mix that the brand is owned by Monsanto.

Now with Buycott, you can simply scan the bar code of any product at the grocery store and find out which company is behind it. The idea is certainly not to complicate your grocery experience, what with the reading of ingredient and nutrition labels, too, but rather to arm you with more information to make a most educated decision. If this is your thing.

“A buycott is the opposite of a boycott. It is an active campaign to buy the products or services of a particular company or brand,” they say in the introductory pages of the app upon download. This suggests that while you may scan one brand and learn of its corporate heritage and choose not to buy it, you’ll likewise scan a different product and choose to support that brand instead. The Buycott app can work either way, obviously.
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If you or your kids are regular consumers of Dannon’s Danimals Smoothies, you’ve been taking in about 25 percent less sugar with each serving. Since February they’ve cut back the sugar in their kid-focused yogurt. They purposefully didn’t make a big deal about it as to avoid scaring off consumers.

It’s not the first time a brand has made a change to its formula only to reap the repercussions of consumers who prefer the status quo. McDonald’s faced backlash when switching from an animal fat frying oil to canola over concerns those world-famous fries would taste different. (Today their website boasts the use of a canola oil blend and that all fried foods on its menu are free of trans fats.)

And of course everyone knows the tale of New Coke, when the soft drink company reformulated its soda and became one of the most infamous marketing flops around. So changing something that wasn’t necessarily broken had to be done so in an exacting way by Dannon. It’s no surprise that the brand treaded these sugary waters carefully.

“One thing I have learned is that the main driver of yogurt sales above all is taste,” said Sergio Fuster, senior vice president for marketing at Dannon, to NYTimes.com. “You do not want to send any signal to the consumer that might lead her to believe the taste has changed because she will simply pick up another yogurt — and it may not be ours.”
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• America’s famous obese dauchsand, Obie, has undergone skin removal surgery. “It is a modified tummy tuck,” said the vet, who performed the surgery, to CNN.

• His owner, Nora Vanatta, had the procedure done at a veterinary clinic in Tualatin, Oregon.

• He weighed 77 pounds at his highest, but weighed a leaner 37 pounds at the time of surgery, having lost 40 pounds in eight months. Removing 2.5 pounds of skin has him down just under 35 pounds, and his owner wants him to lose about five more.

• Last fall, Obie was the center of a custody battle between Vanatta and the Oregon Dachshund Rescue group

• Obie’s Facebook page has nearly 90,000 fans. Photos there show Obie recovering, including Vanetta sleeping next to him in the vet’s kennel.
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Cinco de Mayo is one of the unofficial starts of summer and one of the most food-focused holidays in the US. Who would want to pass up a day where tacos, guacamole, and margaritas flow like fireworks on the Fourth of July? If you’re a calorie counter, that might be you.

Mexican food is known to be rich and heavy and full of fat and calories. A meal at On The Border could push you past 2300 calories for two margaritas, chips and salsa, the three ground beef enchilada dinner with chile con carne, rice, and refried beans, and a sopapilla to round it all out. You know that’s more than a day’s worth of calories, right? And we won’t remind you how bloated you’ll feel afterward.

We plan on celebrating Cinco de Mayo this year, and want you to do so, too! That’s why we’re sharing a few tips and recipes to do so with much less guilt.
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Join us Saturday, May 4 at the Women’s Health Expo in Lake Katrina, New York! This thirteenth annual event brings together the Upstate New York community to promote health, wellness, and fitness in a fun environment. The theme this year is managing stress for a better life. With that more in control everything else naturally seems to fall in to place.

This will be DietsInReview.com’s second appearance at the Women’s Health Expo, and our booth is a can’t-miss part of the event! Stop by to:

• Meet Hannah Curlee, Biggest Loser 11′s at-home winner. She’ll also be speaking on the main stage sharing her story about triumphantly overcoming an overweight past. Find her at MyFitspiration.com.

• Meet Colleen Ketchum, creator of BeyondBarre.com, a cardio-ballet-barre workout that will sculpt, burn fat, and increase endurance. Join her demo in the fitness workshops, too.

• Register to win a one-week stay at your choice of Biggest Loser Resorts*! With locations in Chicago, Niagra, Malibu, and Ivins, Utah you’ll find a resort close to you to help jumpstart your fitness goals.
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