Pesticides in your Froot Loops is only one of the problems.

The Kellogg Company recently announced it was pulling ads from a news agency it felt was “not aligned with our values as a company.”

Fair enough. But this leads to an obvious question: the “values” the company says it is protecting—just what are they?

Here is a short list. It is just our opinion, but there seems to us to be plenty of evidence that these are the values Kellogg’s is most concerned about:

1. Trying to get young children addicted to sugar-laced products.

One study found that high-fat, high-sugar foods light up the same parts of the brain as highly addictive drugs like cocaine. But Kellogg’s entire business model seems to be based on selling sugar to kids under the guise of breakfast cereals and other products. The company has signed on to a code of ethics that is supposed to protect children, but just check out the massive advertising they aim at children as young as two!

Sugar isn’t merely addictive. It is dangerous. The deeper science delves into this, the more danger it finds:

• Sugar dumbs you down. A 2012 UCLA study showed that rats fed a sugary diet had a serious decrease in brain function.
• Sugar damages your heart. Recent research has found a direct, independent link between sugar overconsumption and heart disease.
• A 2013 study showed that higher blood sugar levels were associated with a decrease in memory recall and learning ability. Just what kids in school don’t need.
• By now, most people know that sugar causes type 2 diabetes, and that type 2 diabetics have a higher risk of developing Alzheimer’s. However, study after study is demonstrating that Alzheimer’s may actually be another form of diabetes.

2. Selling kids foods heavily laced with pesticides or herbicides, especially in foods genetically modified to withstand these poisons.

Kellogg’s does not sell GMO Roundup weedkiller-exposed food in countries where it is illegal. But they do here in the US. GMOFreeUSA.com states, “We sent two Kellogg’s products to labs for GMO and glyphosate content testing and the results aren’t pretty. Read our report on Kellogg’s Froot Loops cereal here and Kashi GoLean Original cereal here.”