Earlier this Month, the FDA sent a Warning Letter to Nestle USA regarding three Juicy Juice products: Juicy Juice Brain Development Fruit Juice Beverage (Apple), Juicy Juice All-Natural 100% Juice Orange Tangerine, and Juicy Juice All-Natural 100% Juice Grape. Here’s why:

1. “No Sugar Added”. This statement appears on all 3 products, but is not allowed if the product is targeted at children under 2 years old. The Juicy Juice website additionally states “Naturally Lower in Sugar”, again, unallowed for products intended for children under 2 years old.

2. 100% What? Take a quick look at the product name: Juicy Juice All-Natural 100% Juice Orange Tangerine. Reads as if it is made solely from Oranges and Tangerines. WRONG! It is 100% juice but in fact, most of the juice is from apples. In finer print, once can read “Flavored juice blend from concentrate with other natural flavors & added ingredients“.  Tricky! According to the FDA,

The manner in which the latter statement is presented makes it less conspicuous and prominent than the other label statements and vignettes and therefore less likely to be read or understood by consumers at the time of purchase.

Nestlé confirmed the company had received the letter on the Juicy Juice products. “We are intending to fully cooperate with the FDA in bringing this matter to a conclusion,” a spokesperson said.

What you need to know:

In every regulated industry there’s a cat and mouse game between companies and regulators. No different is the food industry and its main regulator, the Food and Drug Administration. Companies are so eager to create a competitive advantage through marketing, that they stretch the truth, often times falling down a slippery slope to misleading claims.

Nestlé is no better than the rest. We wrote about Juicy Juice in the past. Its marketing tactics are such a pile of BS.

What’s with “Brain Development” you ask? Although DHA (an omega 3 fatty acid) may help with brain development, the evidence is still very shaky, and the downside of such a sugary drink far outweigh the brain benefits.

A half a cup serving (for toddlers) contains TWO AND A HALF TEASPOONS OF SUGAR! This is not a product that should be served regularly to children or toddlers.

What to do at the supermarket:

It appears that now we can’t even trust the NAME of a product to be accurate anymore. The best suggestion when shopping is to keep your eyes focused just on the ingredient list and nutrition facts panel. Regarding juice for children, and especially babies and toddlers – save yourself some money and a future of cavities and fighting with your kids – Serve only water from the day they start drinking.

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Häagen Daazs ice cream is probably one of man’s best inventions, a true elixir. Undoubtedly the recipe was handed down from the heavens to help us mortals live a better life. It’s ice cream at it’s best, ambrosia for $7 a pint.

And it’s fattening, much to our dismay.

A pint will set you back 1200 calories, 100% of your daily fat allowance and 200% of your daily saturated fat allotment. True, the serving size is a quarter of a pint, with 4 half-cup servings per container, but show us someone who knows when to stop…

Ice cream is a fun treat if you eat healthy and indulge every once in a while. At least it’s money well spent compared to other “snacks” that don’t match up in flavor.

Now if they could only make their ice cream a bit healthier…

That’s why we were happy to read [thanks slashfood] about a new product line from the company, called Häagen Dazs Five:

All-natural ice cream crafted with only five ingredients for incredibly pure, balanced flavor… and surprisingly less fat!

Curious to know what’s new, we checked out the ingredient list of Häagen Dazs Five Vanilla Bean flavor to see what has changed from the classic formulation. We expected to find a drastic reduction in superfluous ingredients (including evil preservatives and whatnot). Here is what we discovered:

New formula: SKIM MILK, CREAM, SUGAR, EGG YOLKS, VANILLA (VANILLA BEAN FLAKES, VANILLA EXTRACT).

Classic formula: CREAM, SKIM MILK, SUGAR, EGG YOLKS, NATURAL FLAVOR, GROUND VANILLA BEANS.

Guess what – the classic formula has exactly six ingredients. And despite the “FIVE” logo, the new formula also has six! (Vanilla bean flakes and vanilla extract count as two separate ingredients by our book, not one).

We continued to check the nutrition information. serving size is half a cup in both formulas.

New formula: 220 calories, 11g (17%) fat, 7g saturated fat (35%), 0 trans fat (not really zero just rounded down)

Classic formula: 290 calories, 18g (27%) fat, 11g saturated fat (54%), 0.5g trans fat

We see here that more skim milk is used in the new formula than cream, and the result is less fat and less calories. The big questions is how much of a difference in taste does this reduction in fat cause? And is the 25% saving in calories worth it?

What you need to know:

This Five campaign is a nice marketing move by Häagen Dazs, but will not likely help you with your diet. As usual, don’t let marketing tricks fool you to believe that products are beter for you.

The market pressure is so high, that food companies can’t rely on selling a solid good product anymore, they need to constantly innovate and keep consumers interested in buying more and more of their new products. Trying out all sort of weird flavors (Hello Ben and Jerry’s) is one way. Line extensions are another, hence HD’s Five. It’s not really about our health.

What to do at the supermarket:

Five Shmive, our favorite flavor is Dulce De Leche, and nobody is going to stop us. We promise to limit ourselves to the manufacturer suggested half  cup serving size…

What do you think about the taste of a new Five product compared to the classic formulation? Let us know in the comments below..

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If you’re like most Americans, you consume over 60 pounds of beef a year. That’s a lot of T-bones and burgers. Do you know where your meat came from? Was the cow treated with antibiotics and growth hormones? Was it treated humanely? Do you care?

A growing number of consumers are interested in answers to the questions above. Whether the reasons are health related, ethical, or just plain flavor oriented, we all have a right to know what we’re putting in our mouth.

You’ve probably seen some the following labels at the butcher counter:

grass fed, grass finished, grain finished, organic, natural, humanely raised

What do they mean? Don’t really know? Turns out many of the professionals packing up the cuts for you behind the counter don’t really know either. Nor does the waiter at your favorite restaurant.

A helpful article in The Oregonian helps shed some light on the different kinds of  labels out there: Read more…

From the Coca-Cola Company

The FDA issued a warning letter to the Coca-Cola Company regarding the labeling of Diet Coke Plus:

the product makes a nutrient content claim but does not meet the criteria to make the claim.

The product’s labeling describes the drink as “Diet Coke with Vitamins and Minerals.” On its website, Diet Coke Plus claims to have 10% of recommended daily intake of magnesium and zinc, and 15% of niacin, vitamin B6, and vitamin B12. The FDA has strict regulations as to what claims can be made and when:

Your product Diet Coke Plus is a carbonated beverage. The policy on fortification in 21 CFR 104.20(a) states that the FDA does not consider it appropriate to fortify snack foods such as carbonated beverages. Additionally, the label of your product does not state the identity of a reference food and the percentage (or fraction) of the amount of the nutrient in the reference food by which the nutrient in the labeled food differs, as is required for relative claims such as “plus” under 101.13(j)(2). Therefore, the “plus” claim on the label of this product does not meet the requirements of 21 CFR 101.54(e)(1).

Read the full letter…

What you need to know:

The nutrient enriched drinks market is one of the fastest growing segments in the beverage industry. Think of calcium fortified orange juice, or vitamin waters and you’ll get the idea. Coca-Cola has taken this trend one step further by enriching a carbonated soft drink. Who knows, maybe Twinkies will also become a health food soon.

The FDA has created guidelines regarding health claims and nutrient claims that are fairly straightforward (for a government agency that is…). But there are always loopholes that smart marketers can exploit. For more information on health claims, check this post.

Regardless of regulation, it’s clear that consumers are responding to health claims, even if they seem a bit out of place on snacks and soft drinks. And that is where the FDA steps in to protect the consumer.

What’s interesting though, is that it took the FDA more than a year to send off the letter. Diet Coke Plus has been out on the market since early 2007! What was the FDA waiting for?

What to do at the supermarket:

If you want a fun tasting carbonated beverage with a low calorie count, a diet Coke may hit the spot. However, if you are looking for vitamins and minerals, do yourself a favor and leave the soft drink aisle. Get the good stuff either in a fruit juice, or better yet at the produce section.

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flickr photo: markhillary

Americans spend over 40% of their food dollars outside the home, in restaurants and fast food chains. Many experts see these meals as a prime contributor to the obesity epidemic, as fast food tends to be nutritionally inferior to home cooked meals. New York City enacted a menu labeling law earlier this year, and several other cities followed suit. Each menu item now includes information about calories, fat, sodium, and sugar, helping consumers make more informed meal choices.

Yesterday two more milestones in menu labeling were achieved:

1. California became the first state to enact a menu labeling law. From the LA Times:

Consumers are typically unable to correctly guess the nutritional content of fast food. One study found nine of 10 people underestimated the calorie content of certain restaurant foods by an average of 600 calories. Another study found that even professional nutritionists underestimated the calorie content of restaurant food by 220 to 680 calories.

2. Yum Brands, the owner of Pizza Hut, KFC and others will start adding calorie counts to all food on the menu, in company owned branches across the nation.

Now lets see if consumer habits will begin to change…

Eggs

From the  New York Times:

IT used to be, an egg was an egg. Now they can be cage free and free range, vegetarian and omega-3 fortified, organic, “certified humane” or “American humane certified.” The incredible, edible egg is becoming unintelligible. Read the entire article…

What you need to know:

Over half the calories found in eggs come from the fat in the yolk; a 100 gram egg contains approximately 10 grams of fat, just over a quarter of which is saturated. (The health risk of cholesterol found in the yolk is subject to debate.) Brown or white shells makes no difference nutritionally. The new and varied labels don’t change these basic characteristics but rather try to differentiate a commodity on other levels (eco-friendly, animal-friendly)

Watered down

The Consumerist blog brings the following to our attention, comparing Mott’s Apple Juice with Mott’s Light Apple Juice:

Here’s a perfect example of why you should always approach “healthy” labeling on food products with a skeptical eye…except for a few added vitamins, the Light product was just Mott’s juice diluted by 50% with water—but selling for the same price as the 100% juice.

read full post

What you need to know:

Watering down juice has several benefits – less calories and less tooth decay, especially with toddlers using sippy-cups. Cheaper to do this on your own than to pay the manufacturer. Cheaper still – drink water, eat an apple or apple sauce to get the vitamin goodness.

From The Seattle Post Intelligencer:

About 12 million Americans have food allergies. Severe ones trigger 30,000 annual emergency-room visits, and 150 to 200 deaths a year.

The FDA will begin public hearings on this matter starting Sept 16, a first step in developing a long term strategy to handle the problem.

What to look for at the Supermarket:

If you or your child has an allergy, you probably know better than us what to look for, and where. Please share your tips and guidelines with other readers.