Eye on Marketers

Mark Bittman highlights the industry's predatory marketing of sugary cereals to children and critiques the industry's pushback against the voluntary marketing guidelines. He states: "The junk food industry spent tens of millions of dollars lobbying against them. Their argument: those guidelines would kill jobs. Even if that were true -- which it isn't -- would you rather kill jobs, or children?"

Major fast-food chains roll out new deals to attract consumers including items under-a-buck such as Taco Bell's 99-cent Beefy Crunch Burrito and family bargains like KFC's $11 Weekend Buckets.

A new report, "The Dining Habits of Tweens and Teens" provides an overview of this group's attitudes towards national restaurant chains, such as food preferences, kids' menu preferences and technology usage.

Popular rapper 50 Cent tweeted to his more than 5 million fans that his company, Street King, has partnered with a key independent Pepsi distributor to sell Street King Energy Shots. As a result of this deal, the energy shots, which are currently available in 30,000 stores, could be available in up to 80,000 stores within a few months.