The best kept secret in the food industry is its liberal use of the definition of a serving size. You’d think a serving size should reflect what the average person consumes, but it seems that many manufacturers are selling their products to smurfs, not humans. How else can you explain exactly 11 potato chips or half a cup of ice cream counting as a serving?

The FDA, it appears, is calling the bluff, and according to the New York Times,

is now looking at bringing serving sizes for foods like chips, cookies, breakfast cereals and ice cream into line with how Americans really eat. Combined with more prominent labeling, the result could be a greater sense of public caution about unhealthy foods. Read more…

The NY Times article also include four graphic examples of how wrong serving sizes distort people’s perception of the calories they will actually consume.

What you need to know:

The serving size is a regulated term required for presentation on the nutrition facts panel of packaged foods and beverages. The Nutrition Labeling and Education Act (NLEA) of the early 90’s mandated manufacturers to state the serving size of a product in both measurable amount (grams, fluid ounces, etc..) and consumer graspable terms (2 cookie, half a cup, 1 doughnut). The actual quantity of product per serving is based on outdated consumer surveys, before the era of super-sized meals, big-gulp drinks, and a-pint-at-a-sitting ice creams.

Many companies take advantage of this loophole to literally trick consumers into thinking they’ll be consuming less calories than what they actually do. Here’s a fun trick when you want to create a 100 calorie snack out of a 150 calorie serving – reduce the serving size from 3 to 2 cookies. Genius!

Most annoying are the single serving products that end up actually containing more than a single serving. For example – vending machine soft drinks that come in 20 fl oz bottle meant for a single person to consume, but actually composed of two and a half servings! Duane Reade’s potato chips single serve bag state that there are only 100 calories per serving. Careful examination shows a discrepancy where the serving is defined as 1 oz, but the bag is one an one third ounces, adding 34 more calories to the deal.

If the FDA does take action on this issue, it will be a godsend. We recently published a list of Ten fixes the FDA can require for nutrition labels, such as  getting rid of the silly health claims and stating amount of ADDED sugar. Out #1 request was for proper indication of serving sizes.

What to do at the supermarket:

It’s not enough to check the calorie count per serving, you also need to make sure the serving size suggested by the manufacturer is what you really intend to consume. Be on the lookout especially with snacks and soft drinks, where the empty calories can easily double or triple before you even stop for your first breath of air.

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It seems like the best and brightest MBA graduates go to work for marketing firms. In 1989, one of them came up with a great idea to increase snack sales in the ho-hum month of February. According to the Snack Food Association (SFA) the idea of the month long munch-fest was

to increase consumption and build awareness of snacks during a month when snack food consumption was traditionally low. The result has been a substantial increase in snack food sales during this month. The promotion kicks off on Super Bowl Sunday and publicity is generated throughout the month of February.

Twenty plus years later, you can’t argue with “success.” We’re a snackin’ nation, that’s for sure, with over $60 Billion in sales of snacks annually.

What you need to know:

The decline of family sit-down meals as well as a blurred line separating meals from snacks means that today it’s easier than ever to not even once during the day eat a meal. Whether it’s the breakfast bar you can chew on your commute or a bag of chips in your desk drawer, we’re always an arm’s reach away from a quick and easy hunger fix.

Riding on the health trend, marketers are now busy reformulating and re-messaging their products has healthy snack options. Whether it’s the 100-calorie snack genre, the “health hallowed” granola bar, or potato chips with only 3 natural ingredients, consumers are being convinced that the snacks they are consuming by  the billions are the best thing to happen in the world since sliced bread.

Now don’t get us wrong, snacking is fine, and can fill an important part of the day both nutritionally and socially (cookies and milk, anyone?), but we’ve really, really got to notice how often we snack, what we choose, and how it affects our mealtimes.

Especially with young children, where a less than ideal snack can fill up a small tummy instead of a much more balanced meal to be served an hour or two later.

What to do at the supermarket:

Get out of the snack aisles, and choose your snacks from surprising lanes in the supermarket. Fruits? Check. Veggies in a dip? Check. Bake your own cookies from scratch? Check.

A great resource full of ideas for healthy snacking is over at the Snack-Girl blog.

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Yogi Berra and the Yankees helped Yoo-hoo chocolate drinks become an American icon in the 40’s and 50’s. The sweet and refreshing chocolaty taste became a kids’ favorite across the nation.

When buying Yoo-hoo, many parents mistakenly think they are providing their children a healthy milk-based drink with a touch of sweetness from chocolate so to make it fun to drink. They don’t notice that Yoo-hoo is a “chocolate drink”, not a “chocolate milk”.

A look at the ingredient list shows that there is virtually no milk here, mostly water, sugars, a smidgen of milk by-products, and some chemicals. Oh, and a bit of cocoa too.

Yoo-hoo is not something to treat the kids to. Here’s why…

What you need to know:

If you are looking for nutrition and ingredient information on Yoo-hoo’s website, forget about it. When companies don’t share this information on their website, you can rest assured their product does not have much to boast on the nutrition front. Such is the case with Yoo-hoo.

Let’s begin with the ingredient list (22 items!):

Water, High Fructose Corn Syrup, Whey (from Milk), Sugar, Corn Syrup Solids, Cocoa (Alkali Process), Partially Hydrogenated Soybean Oil, Sodium Caseinate (from Milk), Nonfat Dry Milk, Salt, Tricalcium Phosphate, Dipotassium Phosphate, Xanthan Gum, Guar Gum, Natural and Artificial Flavors, Soy Lecithin, Mono and Diglycerides, Vitamin A Palmitate, Niacinamide (Vitamin B3), Vitamin D3, Riboflavin (Vitamin B2).

Water is the main ingredient followed by copious amounts of the highly debated High fructose corn syrup. Sugar and Corn syrup solids are also added to further sweeten this drink, just for good measure…

Notice that there is no liquid milk in here, only milk by-products such as whey (ingredient #3), sodium caseinate (#8), and non-fat dry milk(#9). Whey is the leftover liquid after milk is curdled into cheese. Together with sodium caseinate, they are a source of protein.

Partially Hydrogenated Soybean Oil (#7) appears ahead of the milk powder here. Why in the world do we need trans-fat in a drink?

Tricalcium Phosphate is a source of calcium, while Dipotassium Phosphate is an additive that is used to prevent coagulation. The Guar and Xantham gums serve as thickeners, providing a richer creamier mouthfeel despite the fact that this is a water based product. You can read more about soy lecithin, an emulsifier, here.

The nutrition facts:
Each 15.5 oz bottle contains two servings, but many people gulp the entire bottle down. Here’s the info per 8oz serving:
130 calories, with only 10 from fat and almost all the rest from sugars! 27 grams of sugar, the equivalent of just under 7 teaspoons!

There’s also 210 mg of sodium in here, almost 10% of the daily maximum value. This is something you wouldn’t expect in a sweet drink.
Trans-fat appears as zero because of a labeling loophole that allows 0.5 grams or less per serving to be rounded down to zero. But remember, if you see a partially hydrogenated oil in the ingredient list, expect trans-fat. And no amount is good for you.

All the vitamins and minerals have been tacked on to this drink, and do not appear naturally in the main ingredients.

What to do at the supermarket:

Ideally you should have your children drinking milk with their cookies, not a sugary concoction. But at some point after infancy, our kids tend to forget the pure milk flavor and demand a sweet flavor. So drinking plain milk is a challenge for many families.

Adding a teaspoon of instant cocoa powder is also fine because you control the sugar level. Another option is to buy chocolate milk and mix it half and half with regular milk to drive down the sugar levels.

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Santa Claus, one of the most popular children’s icons, is not an appropriate role model for kids these days, a comical holiday report from the British Medical Journal says.

A review of literature found that:

Santa made a reckless role model, noting his frequent cookie snacks, occasional cigars and refusal to don a helmet during “extreme sports such as roof surfing and chimney jumping.”

“Santa promotes a message that obesity is synonymous with cheerfulness and joviality” (Ronald McDonald took that theme to new heights)

We still love you Santa, but this year we’ll leave you carrots and lowfat dip on the kitchen table instead of cookies and milk.

Merry Christmas everyone!!!

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Not surprisingly, coupon usage has been on the rise this year. Recession worries have homemakers looking for any additional way to save money.

One of the beneficiaries of this trend is Coupons.com, a website that lets people browse for coupons online, print them out at home, and then use them at the supermarket just like regular coupons. A company press release from earlier this week gives us a glimpse into some interesting facts regarding coupon usage. The most interesting is a breakdown of the top 10 coupon categories for June.

Unfortunately, the most popular coupons are probably the worst products for your health. With the exception of yogurt at #1 (more below), powdered beverage drinks, sweets snacks, cookies, salty snacks, desserts, fat laden condiments, and sugary cereals dominate the list.

Coupons are a big business, with over $1 Billion coupons redeemed last year. The food industry views them as another marketing expense.

But do they help us buy more nutritiously?

Read more…

Here are ten facts about trans-fat, the Darth Vader of  processed foods:

1. Trans fat is found in shortenings,  margarine, snacks such as crackers, candies, and cookies, fried foods, pastries and other  foods prepared with partially hydrogenated vegetable oils.

2. Hydrogenation is the process of bombarding an oil’s fat molecules with hydrogen atoms, making it more dense and raising its melting point, so that the oil becomes solid at room temperature.  An unfortunate side effect of this the creation of trans fatty acids. Partially hydrogenated oil means that the hydrogenation process stopped short of a full solid, reaching a more creamy, semi-soft, butterlike consistency. This is the story of margarine.

3. Cis and trans are terms that refer to the arrangement of chains of carbon atoms in a fat molecule. hydrogenation turns cis  into trans.

4. Some margarine brands use fractionated oils instead of partially hydrogenated oils in order to eliminate trans-fat. The fractionation process involves heating then cooling a liquid oil, thus separating it to fractions that have different melting points. Unfortunately, this process raises the level of saturated fat in the oil.

5. Trans fat labeling on food packages has been mandatory since 2006.

6. Loophole alert: If a serving has less than o.5 grams of trans-fat, the label may state ZERO. Yes, that includes 0.49 grams in a serving size even a 2 year old would find ridiculously too small.

7. Trans-fat is an artificial creation, but there are some trace amounts of trans-fat found naturally in meat and dairy products, called vaccenic acid.

8. consumption of food containing trans-fat has unequivocally been shown to increase the risk of heart disease by raising levels of LDL (bad cholesterol), and lowering levels of HDL (good cholesterol).

9. In 2003, Denmark effectively banned trans-fat from foods, charting a course for an 80% reduction of trans-fat in all foods.

10. in 2008, California became the first state to ban restaurant chains from using  trans-fats for cooking or frying.

What to do at the supermarket:

Don’t trust the nutrition label stating zero trans-fat per serving. Take a look at the ingredient list to spot partially hydrogenated vegetable oils.

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The NuVal Nutritional Scoring System has updated its website to include sample score of hundreds of everyday items. We posted about NuVal and its competitors a few months ago.  These nutrition scoring systems aim to simplify the task of choosing healthier foods at the supermarket.

The NuVal approach is especially easy to understand – each product gets a score from 1 (lowest) to 100 (highest) based on the presence of “good” and “bad” nutrients. The system, originally known as ONQI (Overall Nutritional Qulaity Index), was developed by a respectable team of scientists led by Dr David Katz.

Here are some interesting facts:

The top scoring category, unsurprisingly, is fruits and vegetables, with all products scoring 78 to 100, except for coconut, with a mere 24. Could this be a mistake?

The cereal section has products with scores as low as 4, and as high as 100. Hodgson Mill Unprocessed Wheat Bran scores a perfect hundred, but do you know any kids who’ll eat it? Sadly for this blog’s editor, a childhood favorite, Cap’n Crunch, gets a lowly score of 10.

The worst scoring categories are cookies (1-40) and salty snacks(1-52). Cheetos get a measly 5, Doritos a 10. The top scorer is Garden Of Eatin No Salt Blue Tortilla Chips Made With Organic Blue Corn with a score of 52.

Vegetables, either frozen or canned, score anywhere between 2-100, based on their original “fresh score” plus consideration of the nutrition reduction caused by freezing or canning. Canned vegetables usually get plenty of added salt as a preservative and flavor enhancer, but unfortunately this lowers their score.

What to do at the supermarket:

If you are pondering which cereal to choose from, perhaps NuVal can help you. Right now, the shelf display scoring system is being tested at Price-Chopper and Hy-Vee. Rollout in other groceries has been expected in fall 2008, and early 2009, but it perhaps the logistical challenges are causing some delays. If you have come across an NuVal score that helped you make a halthier shopping decision, please share with us.

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