The Heart Check Symbol – one of the first front-of-pack nutrition labels – was created by the American Heart Association in 1995. The idea was to give people a quick visual cue as to foods that were low in saturated fat and cholesterol. Unfortunately, the sugar count was not considered. And thus, ridiculously sweet and unhealthy foods started to appear with the heart check symbol.

No more, says an AHA spokesperson:

The association advocates limiting the amount of discretionary calories in the diet which come from added sugars. Since desserts are a significant source of added sugars, we have elected to close the dessert category to further certification.”

What you need to know:

This is a good development.

Endorsements on food products by respected health organizations are a double edged sword. On one hand, the AHA wanted to promote healthier eating habits. But on the other hand it began to develop a tidy little revenue stream, charging companies thousands of dollars per product endorsement.

That creates an unnecessary tension that could potentially cause the criteria for heart healthy food to be lower than if no money was being paid. Not saying that this is what happens, but it could.

In general, nutrition labeling that is not regulated by the FDA is an opening for various tricks, shenanigans, and nutrition voodoo. Instead of contributing to healthier consumer choices, such labels may actually achieve the opposite.

What to do at the supermarket:

Your best bet is NOT to rely on front-of-pack labels or other health claims, and head straight to the ingredient list and nutrition facts panel. Granted, it’s more time consuming and requires effort, but if you need help – we’re here to provide advice.

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Yesterday we wrote about the FDA’s plan to refresh nutrition labels and made several of our own suggestions. In parallel, the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI), a consumer watchdog organization, published its own set of recommendations. They’ve done a great job, including some very cool graphics. You can download their 2 page report here [PDF]. Tara Parker-Pope of the New York Times also has a good summary.

Some of CSPI’s recommendations include:

1. Putting calorie and serving size information in larger type at the top of the label so it’s immediately clear how much you are eating. To that, we would add listing the entire calorie content of a package soa person doesn’t have to do the math.

2. Making the ingredient list easier to read by printing it in regular type instead of all capital letters. Use bullets to separate ingredients rather than allowing them to all run together. This is a good point – consumers have a hard time just reading what’s in the box, let alone trying to understand it.

3. Listing similar ingredients together and show the percentage by weight. For instance, sugar, corn syrup, high fructose corn syrup and grape juice concentrate are all forms of sugar and should be listed in parenthesis under the catchall heading “sugars.”

4. Using red labeling and the word “high” when a product has more than 20 percent of the daily recommendation for fats, sugars, sodium or cholesterol. This is a good idea, but we think focusing on sodium, sugar, and saturated fats should be enough. Not all fats are bad, and avocados, high in healthy fats, would be reprimanded in vain.

5. Displaying prominently the percentage of whole grains contained in a product – This is important because many times a bread or pasta will boast “multi-grain” or “whole-grain” when only a small percent of the wheat used is whole, and the rest is plain white flour, devoid of fiber and other nutrients.

What to do at the supermarket:

Until the FDA actually does something, we still have a while to go. In the meantime, shop around the perimeter of the supermarket, look for products with short ingredient lists,  and when in doubt, ask us.

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Popcorn, the quintessential snack of the movies, is a long standing tradition.

The Good: it’s a healthy, low calories snack – very filling due to its fiber content, and less than 100 calories per 3 cups of air popped popcorn.

The Bad: Problems start when pop corn is bathed in oils and butters and serving sizes balloon to double, triple, and higher of the the 3 cup portion size.

The VERY BAD: Popcorn served in movie theaters, in conjunction with soda pop. The Center for Science in the Public Interest just published a report on this matter, and some of the finding were outrageous – Regal theaters largest size popcorn and soda are the caloric equivalent of three McDonald’s Quarter Pounders PLUS 12 pats of butter. The 1600 calories are almost a whole day’s worth, while the 60 grams of saturated fat are supposed to get you by a long weekend (that’s 3 days!). It’s got 20 cups of popcorn, or almost 7 times the recommended portion size.

“Regal and AMC are our nominees for Best Supporting Actor in the Obesity Epidemic,” said CSPI senior nutritionist Jayne Hurley

Oh well, at least that combo is quite expensive, $12.00. That should give some people pause, if not the nutritional atrocity.

Compare to the innocent serving sizes of the 1950’s drive-ins in the clip above.

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Have they gone mad in Great Britain?

SACN, the UK’s Scientific Advisory Council on Nutrition, has just released a draft proposal [download] which claims that the dietary guidelines for daily caloric intake should be revised UPWARDS by up to 16%. In a country where 60% of adults are overweight or obese (2nd after the US), this is quite the shocker.

From the UK’s Times Online:

According to a draft report by the Scientific Advisory Committee on Nutrition (SACN), the recommended daily intake of calories — currently 2,000 for women and 2,500 for men — could be increased by up to 16 per cent, suggesting that some adults could safely consume an extra 400 calories a day (equivalent to an average-sized cheeseburger, or two bags of ready-salted crisps). read more…

How could this be?

What you need to know:

The members of SACN are all highly regarded scientists in the UK and there are no apparent food industry affiliations. So why would they propose something outrageous as this? Shouldn’t this kind of data better be “swept under the rug”?

Well, scientists are not politicians, they look at facts. Going back to the early 90’s when the exiting guidelines were set, they discovered that the tests used to measure people’s energy output were underestimating the actual values. Since energy in = energy out, that means that the calorie recommendations were too low as well.

But why then is everyone getting fatter and fatter?

For one thing, people are still way above their target daily values for calorie intake. In the US, the average intake is 3,700 calories per day! And the UK can’t be far behind. So the daily recommended value is really just a theoretical number with no grounded basis in real life for real people?

Or is it?

The groups most likely to gain from raised calorie allowances are food manufacturers. The nutrition labeling laws require them to display the values of naughty nutrients as saturated fat as both grams and percent-of-daily-allowance. The percentage is derived from the total number of calories per day.

For example – in a 2000 calorie a day diet you can have just 20 grams of saturated fat. But at 2500 calories a day, the magic number is up to 25 grams. Which means that a trashy meal with 5 grams of saturated fat, previously labeled as 25% of the daily max, will now appear as only 20%.

If you think that is insignificant, consider Britain’s Traffic Light System for nutrition labeling. In stores for the past 2 years, the color coded system give shoppers a quick glance at values for sugar , sodium, and fats. Green means low, amber is so so, and red means high. Manufacturers hate this system because products with red are stigmatized as bad.  The colors are based on thresholds of percent-of-daily-allowance. Guess what happens when the percents go down? More greens and yellows, less reds.

What to do at the supermarket:

Folks, don’t party at the junk food aisles just yet. Whether the theoretical-for-most daily recommendations will change or not, people need to cut down on calories not add to them. A good place to start is the beverage aisles – just skip them and go for tap water. Good for you, your wallet, and the environment

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Over the weekend Congress (barely) passed the Affordable Health Care for America Act, or H.R. 3962. And while much media attention went to the abortion clauses that were put in / taken out, there were also several food and nutrition related provisions added to the new legislation.

Section 2572 [NUTRITION LABELING OF STANDARD MENU ITEMS AT CHAIN RESTAURANTS AND OF ARTICLES OF FOOD SOLD FROM VENDING MACHINES] will require 2 things:

1. Any operator of 20 or more vending machines will now be required to label the calorie count for each of the items on sale:

the vending machine operator shall provide a sign in close proximity to each article of food or the selection button that includes a clear and conspicuous statement disclosing the number of calories contained in the article

This is great, because it will help people snack a bit more mindfully. Especially important is the labeling of soft drinks and juices. Consumers pick up a vitamin water and are sometimes surprised when they’re told it contains 8 teaspoons of sugar and 130 calories!

2. Restaurant chains with national presence of 20 or more locales will now have to post calorie information as well. The information has to appear on menus as well as on the menu board and drive in menu board where applicable.

There have been calorie labeling efforts in several cities and states across the country in the past 2 years, but now they’ll all come under a single roof.

While calories are a great start, they certainly don’t tell the whole story of a product, so the bill further states that upon request, customers shall also be informed about level of nutrients such as  fat, sodium, and cholesterol.

That’s nice in theory, but you can just imagine a scene where Fred is standing in line at a busy BK, trying to decide whether to go for a cheeseburger or whopper, and asking the Jack the cashier for the saturated fat content of each. While Jack is scratching his head and calling the shift manager who vaguely remembers some brochure buried in the stock room, the line behind Fred gets longer and more restless….

The National Restaurant Association supports the new menu requirement, and with good reason. Better have one single rule, than have each state or municipality come up with its own requirements, as California did.

We would have liked to see more sweeping legislation connected to food and nutrition in this bill. After all, much of our health problems are directly related to poor eating habits. But this will have to wait for another time.

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School lunch is a hotly debated topic these days.

Around 30 Million children are served a hot lunch every day. The National School Lunch Program is funded and regulated by the Food and Nutrition Service of the USDA. Participating schools get cash minimal subsidies and donated commodities from the USDA for each meal served (now there’s an incentive to get all the kids to eat..). The meals must meet specific nutrition requirements, and eligible children must receive free or reduced price lunches.

So what are people fretting about?

The low budget for the meals usually means preprocessed chicken nuggets, hot dogs, fries, and a host of other fast foods that may be filling, but hardly nutrient rich. Parents, educators, and nutrition professionals would like to see children getting better food. Entrenched businesses find that concept difficult to accept.

Baltimore public schools, serving 80,000 children, decided to try out a new concept – Meatless Mondays. Instead of protein from meats, they are serving up beans and cheese. This is in order to reduce the amount of saturated fats and cholesterol from the meats (although cheese, an animal product, also contains saturated fats and cholesterol).

The decision, reports Eliza Barclay for the Atlantic, has caused the meat industry serious grief. No less than 4 organizations have attacked Baltimore’s moves:

The American Meat Institute says that kids are being deprived of much needed protein. A bogus claim stating that 75% of kids are protein deficient is totally unbased. In fact, there are barely any Americans with a protein deficiency these days.

Pork Magazine alleged that the decision was made without any dietetic consultation. Unfortunately for them, the entire meal plan was created by a school dietitian and a chef.

The Animal Agriculture Alliance and Missouri Beef Concil were just plain “shocked” and hoped this maligned decision would not spread to other communities.

While the  business fears of the meat industry are understandable, only good can come of Meatless Mondays. Nobody is being forced to become a vegetarian, and a good portion of the kids will probably be having some form of meat for dinner anyway. So why the fuss? Introducing children to vegetable lasgana, various bean dishes, and other additions such as whole grains and fresh fruits and vegetables is but a small measure in trying to fix childhood obesity.

Onwards and upwards, school lunchers. Get ready for for tasty Tuesdays and weight-loss Wednesdays…

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Last week, the FDA  hinted it would be seriously looking at regulating Front of Pack (FOP) nutrition labeling systems. As a result, Smart Choices called it quits, and other programs are “on alert”. The FDA’s involvement can be of great assistance to the public, by creating a single unified system in ALL supermarkets and on ALL packages.

But first, wouldn’t it be nice if the FDA cleaned up the mess originally created when the Nutrition Labeling and Education Act (NLEA) brought us the nutrition facts label as we know it today?

Here’s a list of 10 things the FDA can do to improve the existing information on labels. Read more…

Nutella is hands down one of the tastiest spreads out there. A rich and creamy hazlenut and chocolate spread turns any toast into a culinary rockstar.

Ferrero , Nutella’s manufacturer, is now trying to ride the health wave by positioning itself as a healthy and nutritious start to the day. It invites you to treat yourself to a tasty balanced breakfast with Nutella:

Over 50 Hazelnuts per 13 oz. Jar
Contains No Artificial Colors
Contains No Artificial Preservatives

Here’s what they forget to tell you. Read more…

Actually, both are not at the top of the healthy oil list.

Palm oil has 50% saturated fat. Palm Kernel Oil has 80%. These are very high values compared to oilve oil (14%) and canola oil (7%). Saturated fat is attributed to increasing the bad cholesterol (LDL) in our bloodstream thus raising the risk of heart disease.

Although both oils are from palm trees, they are actually 2 different types of oil. Palm oil comes from the fruit itself (reddish orange), whereas palm kernel oil is extracted from the seed (the white in the image above).

Palm oil (NOT palm kernel oil) isn’t all bad though, as it contains large quantities of oleic acid (40%), a healthy fatty acid also found in olive oil and canola oil. Palm oil also contains good levels of vitamin E.

Both palm oils are also at the center of a larger sustainability debate as rain forests are being cleared in order to grow the palm trees. The trend has accelerated in the last decade as palm oil has been used not just for human consumption but as a bio-fuel.

What to do at the supermarket:

Better options are canola and olive oils.

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IFIC, The International Food Information Council, is a trade group representing the interests of food, beverage, and agricultural industries mostly in the US. Recently IFIC published a report entitled “2009 Food & Health Survey – Consumer Attitudes toward Food, Nutrition & Health”. The consumer survey was conducted earlier this year and a summary presentation may be downloaded here [PDF].

There are many interesting statistics, but we’d like to first discuss the findings regarding the nutrition fact panel:

According to IFIC, these are the top 3 “challenges” consumers face with the nutrition panel:
1. Misleading serving size. We agree. See our recent post on this topic.
2. Consumers do not consider their consumption of foods and beverages in the context of their daily intake. This is also true, as 63% of consumers do not know what their daily calorie intake should be. Do you know yours?
3. Consumers do not realize information to help them interpret daily context exists on nutrition panels. There is lots information in there, but it is obfuscated, and for a good reason – vagueness in the details alongside clarity in the headlines (Immunity Cereal) helps sell more products.

The recommendations to manufacturers are:
1. Clarify serving size. Fooducate addition:  Please adjust serving sizes to what people really eat, rather explain why the tiny serving size is reasonable.
2. Call attention to daily intake . Fooducate note: People should know what their daily intake should be. However, if this information will be used to make a 400 calorie sugary snack seems less harmful because it’s part of the larger picture – a 2,500 calorie diet, then people will just keep getting fatter.
3. Mention the FDA boldly in the nutrition panel – to increase trustworthiness. But of course…

Read more…