It's time to close food loopholes
By Owen Morris in Out & About
Thursday, May. 7 2009 @ 12:00PM
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Even though I spend a good portion of my day writing, reading and talking about food, I'm still as confused as anyone at the grocery store. For every health claim that proves to be false -- vitamin flavored soda better for you than regular soda! -- another claim comes along to replace it.
Having worked in bakeries, I've always been wary of grocery store wheat bread. I know what real wheat bread looks and tastes like, and not much supermarket wheat bread actually fits that description. My suspicions were confirmed yesterday by the Wall Street Journal, which explained that the term "wheat bread" is utterly meaningless. "All bread is made with wheat. Some manufacturers add to the illusion by using a brown wrapper or darkening bread with brown sugar or molasses. The more healthful stuff is whole wheat ... Check the ingredients. If the first one listed is 'enriched wheat flour,' you aren't getting much whole grain."
It got me thinking -- with the White House cracking down on businesses that use tax loopholes, now is a perfect time to do a similar crackdown on food loopholes.
Even more common than the wheat-bread loophole is the trans-fat one.
Even chips and ice cream are promoted as being free of trans-fat. There are no rules on how big a sign you can put on your product proclaiming it trans-fat free. Meanwhile the nearly-as-bad-for-you saturated fat can remain in small type on the nutrition label. A good rule-of-thumb law would require food manufacturers to do something like advertise trans and saturated fat in the same-sized font. They can advertise the fat content all they want -- they just have to tell the full story.
Currently the law is loose enough that even foods with trans-fat can advertise that they don't contain any. The Journal explains: "manufacturers are allowed to round down: Products labeled zero grams of trans-fat can have up to 0.49 gram of fat per serving."
The article provides more examples, including dubious health claims for yogurt, super water and Omega-3 vitamins. Also watch out for products that boast "added calcium," anything that says it's "all natural" and fruit drinks that advertise themselves as healthy but are actually made of sugar.
The easy way to prevent falling victim to these claims is to always check the nutrition label. But for many Americans, that's just more confusing. The government has already shown it's more than willing to go after false infomercials and "results not typical" ads. Investigating these misleading claims is the next logical step. Besides, I'm getting really sick of trans-fat-free stickers.
(Image via Flickr: Amber Rhea)
Currently the law is loose enough that even foods with trans-fat can advertise that they don't contain any. The Journal explains: "manufacturers are allowed to round down: Products labeled zero grams of trans-fat can have up to 0.49 gram of fat per serving."
The article provides more examples, including dubious health claims for yogurt, super water and Omega-3 vitamins. Also watch out for products that boast "added calcium," anything that says it's "all natural" and fruit drinks that advertise themselves as healthy but are actually made of sugar.
The easy way to prevent falling victim to these claims is to always check the nutrition label. But for many Americans, that's just more confusing. The government has already shown it's more than willing to go after false infomercials and "results not typical" ads. Investigating these misleading claims is the next logical step. Besides, I'm getting really sick of trans-fat-free stickers.
(Image via Flickr: Amber Rhea)
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