Just as the year is ending, the tireless consumer advocacy group CSPI (Center for Science in the Public Interest) has sent a 158 page report to the FDA, entitled Food Labeling Chaos – the case for reform [download PDF]. In it, the organization claims that nutrition labeling today is insufficient, and that existing regulations are too lax to deal with the marketing brainpower of the food industry.

If you have a nutrition label addiction like we do, this report is awesome. The authors break the issues down into 3 areas:

1. Improving the Nutrition Facts Panel
2. Improving ingredient labels
3. Stopping false and misleading health-related claims

They provide examples, from a wide range of product by Kellogg’s , Nestlé, Gerber,  Minute Maid, and others of why regulatory changes are needed ASAP:

Smart Start Cereal by Kellogg’s misleads consumers to believe that half a cup of added sugar a day is approved by the Institute of Health (that’s 125 grams or 600 empty calories!)

Glacéau vitamin water that comes in 20 fl oz bottles misleads people to think that a serving is only 8oz. In fact, most people gulp down the entire bottle receiving 125 calories instead of just 50.

Thomas’ Hearty Grains English Muffins claim to be “made with the goodness of whole grain” and “made with whole grains”, when in fact the primary ingredient is “unbleached enriched wheat flour,” meaning white flour without the benefits of the whole grain (fiber).

“Consumers need honest labeling so they can spend their food dollars wisely and avoid diet-related disease,” said CSPI senior staff attorney Ilene Ringel Heller, co-author of the report. “Companies should market their foods without resorting to the deceit and dishonesty that’s so common today. And, if they don’t, the FDA should make them.”

What you need to know:

The food industry has a very strong lobby and indirectly exerts a lot of pressure on the FDA. Changes will occur slowly, if at all, and the smart folks in the business sector will always find loopholes and tricks to keep consumers just confused enough to want to buy their products.

What to do at the supermarket:

Don’t fall for marketing tricks disguised as nutrition claims. Simply ignore health claims on the front of the package. Read both nutrition facts panel AND ingredient list, to get a better picture of what food you are buying. Buy products with short, understandable, ingredient lists.

HAVE A HAPPY AND HEALTHY NEW YEAR !!!

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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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There’s a massive campaign on billboards, TV and on the web. It’s a freedom movement, a revolution, and it’s inviting youth to join the cause.

The noble and worthy movement is not about minimum wages for tomato farm workers. Nor is it about better growing conditions for poultry. It’s not for local food either.

In fact, it’s not a real movement at all. It’s just a clever ad campaign, encouraging teens to stop eating at the table, and eat freely wherever and whatever they are doing. And what better way to do so than with a hot pocket?

We decided to exercise our freedom and analyze the ingredients and nutritional value of these mini meals. Not that any of said information is available on the eat freely or hotpockets website. Perhaps Nestle, the brand owner, doesn’t want you think that this freedom of information is necessary.

Let’s have a look at Hot Pockets Four Cheese Pizza, shall we? Read more…

July is National Ice Cream Month, and in honor of our favorite dessert, we’ll post some interesting articles in the coming weeks.

Today, a look at Breyers and Dreyer’s, two leading brands that people often confuse with each other. Dreyer’s is owned by Nestle, and Breyers by Unilever, both huge European food corporations.

Breyers started on the east coast and expanded west; Dreyer’s – in the opposite direction. Dreyer’s adopted Edy’s as their brand name east of the Rockies, but Breyers did not reciprocate out west.

So which company makes better ice cream?

What you need to know:

Taste is a matter of choice, so we won’t comment. But we did want to check if  there was any nutritional advantage to one brand over the other.

Breyers was once famous for its very short ingredient list – milk, cream, sugar, and vanilla. However, since being acquired by Unilever, and as a means to cut production costs, the ingredient list has changed and includes Tara gum, Guar gum, ice-structuring proteins, mono and diglycerides, corn-syrup, and something called Natural Flavor. For the most part, these additives are harmless, but you should inspect ingredient lists to make sure there are no artificial colors.

Today, both companies carry multiple lineups of products, divided into names such as “Light”, “No sugar added”, “All Natural”, and “Carb Smart”.

Keeping ice cream tasty while reducing its caloric foot print is not an easy task. Replacing sugar with artificial sweeteners and sugar alcohols is an easy first step, but yields a slightly off taste, and for some people causes bloating and gas.

Taking out the fat is a bigger challenge. After all the “cream” in “ice cream” is milk fat. Dreyer’s introduced a new processing method a few years ago called slow churning, which enables reaching the same creamy consistency of regular ice cream using a third less cream. Usually a spoonful more sugar is added to compensate for the loss of fat (17 grams vs 14 grams).

From a nutritional perspective Dreyer’s and Breyers are very simialar. A comparison of half cup serving of regular Vanilla ice cream is shown below.

What to do at the supermarket:

Here’s our ice cream philosophy – Ice cream is NOT a nutrition product. It should not be treated as one. It should be a fun and tasty treat consumed in moderation. Better a cup of creamy rich Vanilla ice cream once a week, than five half cups of subpar “1/3 calories less” product consumed almost daily.

Don’t eat ice cream as a meal replacement. Don’t eat straight out of the bucket in front of the TV.

Do add a scoop on top of fruit, or in a tall glass of ice coffee.

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Three months after scores of young women across the country began to fall ill with a particularly nasty strain of e-coli, Federal health officials manged to piece together the puzzle and discover that the root is Nestle’s refrigerated cookie dough products, eaten raw.

Nestle issued a recall yesterday, but managed to confuse more than elucidate. On the one hand Nestle is asking people to return products to the store, but on the other hand it says that as long as you bake the product it should be safe. What’s a consumer to do?

The FDA is more clear cut in its instructions: Cooking the dough is not recommended because consumers might get the bacteria on their hands and on other cooking surfaces.

Meanwhile, consumer groups are calling for improved food safety measures by the FDA, so that these contaminations are discovered before people get sick. Nestle is actually known for stringent safety protocols, so it will be interesting to see what else it could have done to prevent this recall.

What you need to know:

The contaminant casuing the problem is E. coli O157:H7. It causes abdominal cramping, vomiting and a diarrheal illness, often with bloody stools. Most healthy adults can recover completely within a week. Young children and the elderly are at highest risk for developing HUS, which can lead to serious kidney damage and even death.

What to do at the supermarket:

Folks, you knwo the drill. Remember the recall is just for cookie dough, although if past behavior is any indicator, sales all  Tool House cookies are going to slump in the next few weeks.

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Lean Cuisine, A Nestle brand of frozen dinners, is very popular with dieters. “Lean Cuisine” is considered a nutrient content claim by the FDA, so all products under this brand are required to meet the “lean” criteria per serving: less than 10 grams of fat, less than 4.5 grams of saturated fat, and less than 95 mg cholesterol.

We decided to take a look at Lean Cuisine’s Shrimp and Angel Hair Pasta described by Nestle as:

Shrimp and angel hair pasta in a creamy seafood sauce with accents of sherry, tossed with red peppers.

Read more…

Shocking but true -  the average American eats 6 frozen meals a month.

The first TV dinner appeared in 1953 under the Swanson brand as a solution for busy moms who had begun joining the workforce and could no longer spend hours in the kitchen preparing daily meals. The dinner included turkey, corn bread and gravy, buttered peas and sweet potatoes. It cost $0.98.

This was the beginning of a revolution. Combining an entree and two sides in a three part aluminum container that could be heated, eaten from, and then discarded proved to be a great convenience for consumers.

Read on for some fascinating facts…

Read more…

It took a lawsuit, but Nestle and the Coca Cola Company, who jointly market Enviga Green Tea, need to stop claiming it reduces weight. From the LA Times:

Connecticut Atty. Gen. Richard Blumenthal began an inquiry in 2007 seeking evidence that consumers who drink Enviga burn more calories than they take in. Blumenthal, who had said the claim might be “voodoo nutrition,” led the coalition of states and the District of Columbia in the settlement.

The companies agreed to re-label Enviga to add disclosures and disclaim weight-loss benefits, Blumenthal said Thursday. Any marketing of Enviga or a similar beverage that uses the terms “the calorie burner,” “negative calories” or “drink negative” must clearly disclose that the product doesn’t lead to weight loss without diet and exercise, he said.

“The Enviga lesson is that weight loss requires sound diet and exercise, not simply a concoction of caffeine and green tea,” Blumenthal said. “Enviga’s calorie-burning claims led to credibility loss more than weight loss.”

read the entire article…

What you need to know:

Health claims are regulated by the FDA, and must be based on sound science. In many cases the science is only partially established. In those cases, the health claims are qualified by a disclaimer (which usually appears in a much smaller font at the bottom of the package).

Enviga was introduced in 2006. The studies which led Nestle and Coke to the revelation that their caffeine based concoction will burn calories is based on a simple fact -  any caffeine product speeds up metabolism and creates a calorie burning effect for a limited time. The additional antioxidant EGCG (Epigallocatechin gallate), found in green tea, has not been found to “burn calories”.

It’s too bad Enviga doesn’t state the amount of caffeine in each can, but of course, that kind of information is not interesting to consumers, is it? Thankfully EnergyFiend has a list of all energy drinks and their caffeine content. Enviga boasts 100mg of caffeine in a 12 oz. can, roughly three times more than regualr Coca Cola, and 15% less than the Red Bull equivalent.

What to do at the supermarket:

Our usual advice is to avoid health claims, as they are merely marketing hype. Read the ingredient list and the nutrition label to get your facts. Watch your caffeine consumption by inquiring about the caffein levels in various drinks.

If you want to lose weight, limit your daily intake of calories, and exercise regularly. Processed foods, and even worse, liquid candies, will not be your savior.

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Last month, Nestle Nutrition, a subsidiary of Nestle, launched BOOST Kid Essentials Nutritionally Complete Drink. According to Nestle’s press release:

…parents have a new way of providing their children with optimal nutrition and protective benefits… the only nutritionally complete drink that gives kids ages 1 through 13 the power of immune-strengthening probiotics plus complete, balanced nutrition…fortifies a child’s diet with 25 essential vitamins and minerals, seven grams of muscle-building protein, key antioxidants and 244 energy-packed calories.

BOOST Kid Essentials Drink can fill in nutritional gaps and help support the strong growth and healthy immune system every child deserves. As a refreshing treat or meal, BOOST Kid Essentials Drink can be part of a child’s daily diet.

“Parents can feel good knowing they are building the right health foundation for their children with this one-of-a-kind product,…”

What you need to know:

All of the above is great, but we’d like to know what’s in inside. Specifically – how do they get kids to like it.

Especially because the press release boasts:

does not contain high-fructose corn syrup

A look at the ingredient list, reveals that 3 out of the first four ingredients are sugar:

Ingredients: WATER, SUGAR, MALTODEXTRIN, FRUCTOSE,…

In fact, in an email response to our question, Nestle Consumer Services stated that an 8 fl oz (1 cup) serving contains 24 grams of sugars. That’s the equivalent of FIVE TABLESPOONS of sugar!

Is this a sweet deal for parents?

At $2.50 a pop (a 6 pack costs $14.99 at Walgreens), this sounds more like expensive candy juice with a torrent of nutrients thrown in.

Can’t kids get their vitamins and minerals from real food?

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The USDA has announced a recall by Nestle / Stouffer’s of the following Three Lean Cuisine products:
*  9.5-ounce packages of “LEAN CUISINE PESTO CHICKEN WITH BOW TIE PASTA” brand frozen meals.
* 10.5-ounce packages of “LEAN CUISINE CHICKEN MEDITERRANEAN” brand frozen meals.
* 12.5-ounce packages of “LEAN CUISINE CHICKEN TUSCAN” brand frozen meals.

The problem was discovered after the company received consumer complaints and a report of one injury. The company identified the objects as small pieces of hard plastic.

Here are the full details.

Lean Cusine Chicken Mediterranean

Lean Cuisine Chicken Tuscan

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