Saturday, April 21, 2012

Food Labels: Real or Really?



The Cockroach Catcher has always been amazed that in a short time under pressure form consumer groups and the government, food manufacturers and supermarkets managed to produce detail analysis of the product they sell so that consumers can be clear what they are “consuming”!

What he was amazed was how healthy most foods were: sugar free, trans fat free, cholesterol free. Even when the product has cheese.

Wow! Modern food processing technology!

Really!!!

Then he remembered Ribena. You can read about it here>>>>>
 Vancouver ©2012 Am Ang Zhang
I happened to be in one of the world’s most livable city and imagine my surprise when I read this in:


Tests unveil misleading food labels
Bad nutrients understated, good ones overstated

By Sarah Schmidt, Postmedia News April 20, 2012
 Some of the world's biggest food brands and leading organic labels have understated the amount of bad nutrients — such as fat, sugar and sodium — in their products, or overstated the good ones, internal government tests show.
Kraft, Frito Lay, Unilever and Heinz are among the big names with a product that flunked Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) testing, conducted to see if nutrition claims on labels live up to their billing.
Loblaw's popular President's Choice brand had multiple "unsatisfactory" tests on products ranging from cereal to spaghetti.
Premium brands like Amy's Kitchen, Eden Organic, Natur-a, Kashi and Yves Veggie Cuisine also fell short on composition claims, as did Canadian food-makers like B.C.-based Sun-Rype Products Ltd. and Quebec-based Aliments Fontaine Sante.
No Sugar:
Among the breads and baked goods tested, Fenwicks "no sugar added" cookies (too much sugar)

Iron:
In the snacks category, Krispy Kernels Inc.'s Island mixed nuts claimed to contain 90 per cent of the recommended daily intake of iron per serving. Samples tested by CFIA found contained a fraction of that: 10.5 per cent.

A sampling of other findings shows the huge discrepancies that can exist between labels and ingredients.

Cholesterol:
Some snacks boasting a "No cholesterol" message on their label showed levels ranging from 4.3 milligrams (Lays Smart Selections chips) to 10.5 mg (Barbara's Cheesepuff Bakes) per portion, according to CFIA tests.

(PepsiCo says its own tests on Lays chips, conducted after CFIA informed the company of the agency's eight unsatisfactory tests involving samples of three Smart Selections chip products, showed the claim was accurate.)

Kraft made the same no-cholesterol claim for its Ritz "Real Cheddar Cheese" crackers, but CFIA testing showed the crackers contained 3.2 mg per portion. Dare's cinnamon snap biscuits contained 4.9 mg, CFIA testing showed.

These discrepancies pale in comparison to the findings of two canned snail products picked up from Dollarama stores in Regina. The products of Indonesia, branded as "Beaver" and "Pacific Pride," contained 147 mg and 131 mg of cholesterol per serving respectively, not zero as claimed.
Vitamins:

Canned foods from Unico (pizza sauce), Primo (vegetable soup), Stokely (pumpkin) and Amy's (refried beans, butternut soup) all fell short of their vitamin claims. So did Eden Organic's vegetable spirals, President's Choice organic pasta sauce, Fontaine Sante spinach dip and Island Farms yogurt.

Of the 40 products found to be overstating the amount of vitamins in their products, Yves Veggie Cuisine Ground Round (Mexican flavour) and a prepared pasta dinner by Olivieri Creations stood out for being wildly inaccurate.

The label on Yves Veggie Cuisine Ground Round, a product of the Hain Celestial Group, said each serving contained 80 per cent of the daily value of vitamin A, but CFIA testing showed 3 per cent. And a pre-packaged tortelloni and chicken dinner by Olivieri Creations claimed to contain 110 per cent of the daily value of vitamin C per serving, but CFIA found a serving contained only 1.1 per cent.

Sun-Rype, Oasis and Bolthouse Farms were among the juice brands that overstated — by about double — the amount of a vitamin.
Two juices from Dewlands fared worse; each boasted 35 per cent of the daily value of vitamin A, but none was detected in either.

Omega acids:
Big-brand products that failed to live up to their omega-3 or omega-6 fatty acid claims included President's Choice Angus burgers, Kraft House Italian dressing and Country Harvest tortillas. Hellmann's mayonnaise under-delivered on the amount of polyunsaturated fatty acids, as did Kashi's honey almond flax cereal.

Specialty products that overstated one these so-called "good fats" include Natur-a soy beverages, So Good fortified soy beverage, Ruth's cereal, and Mom's Healthy Secrets cereal.

GoldSeal canned salmon, Ocean's canned salmon, Our Compliments salmon burgers and High Liner salmon were among the fish products that overstated the amount of omega-3 or omega-6 fatty acids.

Salt:
Some products pitched as reduced in sodium didn't live up to their billing, including Heinz "25 per cent less sodium" Dora the Explorer vegetable and pasta soup, Eden Organic "low salt" canned green lentils, rice and beans, R.W. Knudsen Family "low sodium" vegetable cocktail, "50 per cent less sodium" President Choice crackers, and "low sodium" President's Choice tomato and roasted red pepper soup.

There were also "unsatisfactory" discrepancies in three different Bread Works Bakery "low in sodium" cracker products, with one containing 277.8 mg of sodium, not 70 mg, according to CFIA tests.

Two different cans of Unico artichokes, picked up four months apart, were found to be saltier than claimed on the Nutrition Facts Table.

Calories:
"Light tasting" Nutriwhip testing showed 68 calories per portion, not 20 as claimed on the label. A green tea beverage from Tempest Tea claimed to contain just 5 calories, but testing showed 106 calories per portion.


If it could happen in Canada, do you think it could happen here?



1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Wow! What a scary story?

Shouldn't our govt check them?