Marketing genius or smoke and mirrors? Triscuits, those slightly salty wheat thins,  are being sold with a small surprise inside. No, not a toy from China, rather a small bag filled with … seeds!

Kraft is encouraging its customers to connect with real, natural, local food by no less than growing it at home or at a community garden. Their  “Home Farming” website invites people to join the movement and plant herbs and veggies.

While cynical observers may play this down as a marketing trick by a company famous for processed foods (cheese “products“, anyone?), we think this is a great idea. Getting people to connect to the soil and appreciate the hard work it takes to bring forth food from the land is a wonderful idea, even if the instigator has additional motives.

As for Triscuits themselves, they’re for the most part a better than average snack option in the savory category. Take for example the BAKED WHOLE GRAIN WHEAT ORIGINAL, which has only 3 ingredients – whole wheat flour, vegetable oil, and salt. A serving is only 120 calories, with 1 gram of saturated fat (relatively low) , 3 grams of fiber (very good), and 180mg of sodium (8% of the daily max).

The problem is that a serving size is defined as 28g (one ounce), but people don’t know how many Triscuits that works out to. So how will they know when to stop?

The number, after counting, is 7 Triscuits per serving. SEVEN. That’s a mighty tiny serving, don’t you think?

This before we dress up the Triscuit, for example with some cheese (more saturated fat and calories), as shown in the product package.

What to do at the supermarket:

When looking for savory snacks, check the side panel for important information:

1. How big or tiny is the serving size? Does it represent what you’d normally consume in an “eating event”.
2. Look at the ingredient list to see that it does not contain any surprises such as partially hydrogenated vegetable oils (trans fat) or “flavorings”.
3. Read the nutrition facts panel to understand how many calories you’re getting and their breakdown protein/fat/carbs.

Get Fooducated: RSS Subscription or Email Subscription

Follow us on twitter: twitter.com/fooducate

New! Choose a better breakfast with CerealScan™ by Fooducate

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.

Get Fooducated: RSS Subscription or Email Subscription

Follow us on twitter: twitter.com/fooducate

New! Choose a better breakfast with CerealScan™ by Fooducate

Here’s a variation on a theme we’ve long known. Calorie counts on fast food menu items shortchange us, with a twist. In a study recently published in The Journal of the American Dietetic Association, researchers found that calories stated on fast food menu items tended to be inaccurate, averaging 18% MORE CALORIES per item than listed in the menu. Example: Wendy’s grilled chicken wrap listed 260 calories, but was found to have 344 (a 32% overage).

It’s not surprising that calorie counts are inaccurate. A precise measurement in a lab is very expensive, so most companies turn to software programs that calculate calories based on the product’s ingredients. But the software is unable to take into account the various preparation methods and variances in quantities of each ingredient (half a tablespoon of mayo added or subtracted is 65 calories!).

But to err consistently higher than what’s stated on the menu, and by a whopping 18 percent, seems a bit fishy don’t you think? Granted, a few items did err for the better, but they were a minority.

It’s important to mention that the research was focused on reduced energy meals, the items people most interested in weight loss tend to look at.

If you’re scoffing and thinking that people wanting to lose weight shouldn’t be in a fast food joint to begin with, we’ve got more bad news. The researchers also checked 10 popular frozen meals and found an average 8% discrepancy, again skewing to a lower calorie count than was actually present. Lean Cuisine’s shrimp and angel-hair pasta claims 220 calories, but clocked in at 319 (45% more!).

Let’s have some back-of-an-envelope math fun, shall we?

If a supposedly 2000 calories-a-day diet is actually 18% higher in calories, that means 2360 calories or an extra 360 calories a day consumed. Since every 3500 calories are equivalent a pound to our body weight, approximately every ten days we’d gain one pound of body weight. In one month, we’d be up 3 lbs. In one year, a whopping 36 pounds!

Fooducate readers know not to trust health claims, and know that front of pack nutrition labels are more about marketing than anything else. Should we now assume that the calorie count on the nutrition facts panel is wrong too?

The FDA gives manufacturers 20% leeway when labeling their products’ nutritional values. That doesn’t mean manufacturers automatically skim 20% off  the real number to seem attractive to shoppers. But just like your cellphone / internet / [insert here]  providers tend to err NOT in your favor, so do food manufacturers. And most of them know that the FDA has bigger issues to handle and thus won’t come running after them.

What to do at the supermarket:
One way to reduce calorie miscounts is to buy more products that don’t have calories listed on them – fresh fruits and vegetables, for example. Another is to automatically add a “TAX” of 10-20% when you read the calorie label, just as you would when calculating a sales tax.

You should also note that a far greater problem is serving size misrepresentation. Many products specify a toddler size portion, when in fact people consume twice the amount. That raises the calorie count by 100%, not a measly 18%. So make sure you read the calorie count together with the serving size to get a better picture of what you’ll be ingesting.

But enough math for today.

Get Fooducated: RSS Subscription or Email Subscription

Follow us on twitter: twitter.com/fooducate

Help us test our new food comparison tool: alpha.fooducate.com

Help the FDA Improve

NUTRITION FACTS LABELS

The FDA is reconsidering the Nutrition Facts Panel. Almost 20 years after the Nutrition Labeling and Education Act of 1990, and with soaring rates of obesity, one could argue that the goals of a healthier, slimmer America have not been achieved.

The Food and Drug Administration, charged with most foods’ nutrition labeling realizes this. So it has decided to experiment with changes, additions, and omissions in order to improve consumer understanding of what they are about to eat.

But before building the experiment, the FDA is soliciting comments from the public, and that includes us – you, me, and whoever cares about nutrition. Unfortunately, the digital hallways of the federal government are not user friendly and it is not trivial to find the right webpage to comment. This means that in many cases, the only comments come from food manufacturers and trade groups. You can probably guess what their comments will look like.

So here’s some help from Fooducate. Not only did we dig up the single click that takes you straight to the comment page, we’ve also collated Seven Label Improvement Suggestions [see below] that you can suggest to the FDA.

The invitation to comment by the FDA can be downloaded [PDF] or viewed online.

You need to submit your comments by January 19, 2010. For reference, the docket number is FDA–2009–N–0532 and you can submit your comment here.

Seven Suggested Label Improvements:

If you are contemplating what improvements the FDA should undertake, let us help with a few examples. Feel free to “copy paste” when you file your comment with the FDA.

1. Show REAL serving size. Have you ever noticed the ridiculously small serving sizes on packages – 3 Oreos? 15 potato chips? Or a single serve 20 fl oz bottle of cola written up as containing 2.5 servings? Manufacturers like to minimize the servings to toddler size portions so that the nutrition facts per serving won’t seem too bad (calories, sugar, etc…). This is misleading and needs to change to reflect how people really consume food and drink.

2. How much ADDED sugar? The nutrition label states the amount of total sugar in a serving, but it does not indicate whether the sugar is added to the food, occurs naturally, or both. Caloric-ly, there is no difference between added sugar and sugar found naturally in fruits and vegetables. But the benefit of fruits containing naturally occurring sugars is in the additional vitamins, minerals, fiber, antioxidantss and phytochemicals they provide. Added sugars provide no health benefits. They are truly empty calories. People should choose products with as little added sugar as possible. Unfortunately, today consumers can only guess how much sugar has been added to a product.

3. Daily Values for Protein, Sugar. These numbers don’t appear on nutrition labels today and consumers can only guess if 5 grams of protein are a lot or a little. As most people consume plenty of protein daily, this will decrease the marketing hype around high protein bars and snacks. As for sugar, people don’t know what amount is an acceptable daily intake of total sugar, and of added sugar.

4. Zero should be zero. Did you know that if a product contains trans fat, but less than 0.5 grams per serving, it can legally be labeled as 0 gram of trans fat? This is ridiculous. Knowing this, manufacturers can “calibrate” serving sizes to be just under half a gram’s worth of trans-fat, thus earning the right to place the coveted zero number on the nutrition label. But when wolfing down a snack bag (real serving size much larger than labeled – see #1 above), you could be getting even 1.25 grams of trans-fat, all while thinking that the product contains none at all.

5. Caffeine content. Products that contain caffeine should clearly state the amount. People are often surprised to discover caffeine in soft drinks, cakes, and other snack items. Some energy drinks contain ridiculously high amounts. Physicians have asked the FDA to require caffeine labeling on energy drinks.

6. Allow rBGH-free labels. rBGH / rBST is a hormone injected into cows to increase their milk output. The hormone has been associated with various health risks for humans consuming the milk. People should know if their milk comes from cows treated with these hormones.

7. Label Booz. Alcoholic beverages should be labeled as well. At a bare minimum, provide serving size and calories.

Click HERE to submit your comments to the FDA.

Get Fooducated: RSS Subscription or Email Subscription

Follow us on twitter: twitter.com/fooducate

Help us test our new food comparison tool: alpha.fooducate.com

This is a guest blog post by Carol Harvey, director of nutrition labeling at Palate Works.

Nutrition Facts labels look so official in that bold, uniform format. They must be correct… and are verified by FDA, right?

While FDA regulates nutrition labeling, they do not pre-approve nutrition panels, nor do they spend much time looking for inaccurate ones. With thousands of new products hitting the shelves every year, it would take a massively larger FDA budget. The result is something of a labeling Wild West in the food aisles and online.

Nutrition Facts data is generated one of two ways:  database analysis of the recipe (with software), or chemical analysis of an actual sample of the food (in a laboratory). Both have limitations and are not immune to human error, but in the hands of the inexperienced (or deceitful), database analysis is much less reliable. It is also much cheaper than a lab (about 15% of the cost or less), so it tends to be the choice of restaurants and smaller food companies, many of whom do it themselves with no knowledge of labeling regulations, nutrition, or what correct data should look like.

There are many ways that database analysis can result in imprecise, inaccurate, or simply wrong nutrition data. Fortunately, some are obvious enough to spot without plunking down a small fortune for chemical analysis.

Here are six examples of common nutrition label errors: Read more…

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…

Image via Wikipedia

We often complain about the FDA’s weakness as the regulating body dealing with the food industry. Thankfully, the new FDA leadership is starting to add more bark and bite. Here are two steps forward:

1. The FDA is doing a huge Internet survey of 43,000 people to learn about Barriers to Food Label Use . Apparently, there is a decline in label use in the “under 34″ age bracket. According to the FDA the purpose of the study is to explore possible explanations for food label use and non-use among U.S. consumers. The information collected from the study will be used to help to improve consumer understanding and use of the food label.

We would like to see the FDA take a bolder step, of course, and improve the requirements for food labels. Some easy examples – require manufacturers to specify how much added sugar is present. Or provide more realistic serving sizes, a serving of 2 Oreo cookies is not logical. And how about getting rid of those silly health claims, like that of a sugary cereal reducing cholesterol levels.  For a full list, see a previous Fooducate post – 16 Ways to Improve Nutrition Labels.

2. The FDA has issued a rule that requires food manufacturers to notify the government agency within 24 hours if they discover a contamination that poses a health threat to consumers. It may surprise you that manufacturers don’t report this immediately or that up to now companies could have taken weeks to let the FDA know about a health issue. But that’s the sad reality. Hopefully the new measure will help stop the spread of food borne illnesses at an earlier stage, potentially saving lives and suffering.

Kudos, FDA. There’s still much more work ahead. Don’t let the food industry bullies lobbies stop you from protecting consumers.

Get Fooducated: RSS Subscription or Email Subscription

Follow us on twitter: twitter.com/fooducate

Help us test our new food comparison tool: alpha.fooducate.com

It’s unbelievable how the $50 billion beverage industry keeps coming up with new products and inventions to entice consumers with. The fastest growing segment in the past few years has been energy drinks, but it’s beginning to flatten. Will relaxation soft drinks, the new up and coming niche, prove successful?

Most likely yes. Sadly.

But before you run off to unwire with a “vacation in a bottle”, we want you to take a look at a sample product, Purple Stuff, with us. Read more…

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…

We always get a kick when we read nutrition labels and discover how manufacturers trick us into believing their product is manna from heaven. A great example is tiny the serving sizes for foods of problematic nutritional value. By decreasing the portion size to 3 year old consumption standards, the calorie count in junk food seems decent.

In real life, most of us eat slightly more than toddlers, and therefore the serving sizes need to reflect true consumption. Here are some examples of bogus serving sizes from a recent trip to the supermarket. Please add your sighting in the comments section.

Campbell’s Chunky Fully Loaded soup. The 19 oz can boasts “When you’ve got extreme hunger, go for the black can.” Well, it should say go for half a black can, because there are 2 servings in there. While a single serving is only 300 calories, wolfing down a whole can will cost you 600 calories, 1860 mg of sodium (over 75% of your daily maximum), and 22 grams of sugar (over 5 teaspoons).

Oreo Cookies - 3 cookies per serving?

Oreo Cookies. A delicious American classic from Nabisco. Each serving is only 160 calories. An 18 oz package claims to house 15 servings of…3 cookies each. Name one person who stops at 3 Oreos. Now think about the number of cookies you consume while snacking. 6? 10? you’ve upped your to almost a qurater of your daily intake for what is basically sugar, oil, flour, and additives.

Honey Nut Cheerios. Another classic. If you’ve ever tried to measure a 3/4 cup serving size, you’d notice that is a smaller portion that what you normally consume. Go ahead, add 50% to the 110 calories and 9 grams of sugar you thought you were getting.

Tazo Giant Peach Tea. A 13.8 oz bottle seems just about the right size drink for a hot summer day. It’s 90 calories and 20(!) grams of sugar per serving, but you’d have to stop drinking halfway, because the bottle contains 2 servings. Everyone gulps down the entire bottle, so why mislead the consumer? By the way, the 40 grams of sugar in the bottle are the equivalent of 10 teaspoons!

Lays Classic Potato Chips - how many servings in a bag?

Lays Classic Potato Chips. An 11 oz bag boasts 11 servings, each with 10 grams of fat, 180mg of sodium, and clocking in at 150 calories. Lay’s defines a serving as 15 chips, but hey who’s counting. Many people polish off an entire bag with a friend or two. The real serving size is therefore at least twice as high. That works out to 300 calories and 20 grams of fat (a third of a day’s maximum).

We could go on and on, but you get the picture.

What to do at the supermarket:

If you are counting calories or sodium or whatever, make sure to insect the serving size listed on food packages to make sure they match your expectations. If not, you’ll have to calculate adjustments.

Get Fooducated: RSS Subscription or Email Subscription

Follow us on twitter: twitter.com/fooducate

Help us test our new food comparison tool: alpha.fooducate.com