A Chocolate Mess

"N-E-S-T-L-E-S, Nestles makes the very best, Mal-nutrition." That mutant jingle from the old commercials made the campus rounds this week, as the boycott-Nestle movement picked up crunch.

The Currier and Adams House Committees, the new Student Assembly, and the Harvard-Radcliffe Hillel Society came up with only one negative vote among their members on boycott resolutions this week, as all four groups approved the motions. The resolutions urge the Committee on Houses and Undergraduate Life (CHUL) to call for a University-wide boycott of Nestle products.

The argument against Nestle is that the company's marketing techniques for baby formula in the Third World discourage mothers from breast-feeding. Because the formula has to be mixed with local water, it increases chances for disease; and as many mothers can not afford the recommended quantities of formula, it gets diluted and the babies become malnourished.

Four other House Committees--Mather, Lowell, North and Quincy--support the boycott resolutions.

The Food Services Department announced yesterday that it was dropping Nestle as its hot chocolate supplier in favor of a cheaper brand that allegedly scored higher in student taste tests. Food Services is keeping Nestle's ice tea, however, so the decision was a marshmallow dressed up with Harvard's famed public relations timing.