Food companies in hot water for misleading labels

Let’s face it: if you think mini ice cream bites are healthy and nutritious, you’re just not paying attention.

But when it comes to other grocery store staples the difference between healthy eats and bad-for-you treats isn’t always so clear.  And as it turns out, it’s not entirely our fault.

On Wednesday, the FDA announced their distribution of 17 warning letters to processed food manufacturers for misleading front-of-pack labels and (bogus) health claims.  The letters told the companies they are in violation of FDA regulated health-specific language and labeling.  The strongly worded letters also state a failure to comply in the timely removal of the offending assertions from packages will result in legal action.

What is shaping up to be the largest label crackdown in FDA history comes on the heels of the much talked about initial smack down of General Mills Cheerios in May 2009.

Cheerios was reprimanded for their flagrant front-of-package claim that the cereal was clinically proven to lower your cholesterol by 4 percent in 6 weeks time. 

The FDA stated in their warning letter to Ken Powell, General Mills’ CEO, that such language, claims and promotion “cause it to be a drug because the product is intended for use in the prevention, mitigation and treatment of disease.”

Or at least that’s how consumers may misconstrue it.

It is these same sorts of claims and misleading advertising that have now found 16 other companies in the hot seat.  The companies range from Nestle (for their Juicy Juice products), to Dreyer’s Grand Ice Cream, to Gorton’s Inc. (makers of Gorton’s Fish Fillets) and even POM Wonderful, a company and brand of pomegranate juice.

The products in question range from the seemingly benign — pomegranate juice — to the more obvious saturated fat-filled ice cream snacks.  But innocent in appearance or not, the last place we need any sort of “creative deception” is when it comes to knowing exactly what it is we’re feeding ourselves, much less children.

With labels that boast “cholesterol-lowering benefits” and “100 percent juice,” at first glance, it would appear what we’re putting in our carts is health food, when in fact it’s still just over processed junk with half-truths scrawled upon their brightly colored cartons.

What may seem like harmless adjectives, such as “all natural,” or healthy food ingredient buzzwords and phrases like, “made with whole grain” and “real fruit,” actually mean something and what they mean is not accurately reflected in the product you’re consuming.

The FDA (for the most part) has rigid definitions, facts, figures and percentages as to what a food item must or must not contain to be able to be labeled as such.  But more often than not, companies are ignoring those definitions when it comes to what makes it into the package design.

The FDA’s announcement of their plan to get tough on companies who ignore regulations or employ deceptive labeling language came just one day after they released the results of a nationwide survey of more than 2,500 adults.  The survey found for the first time ever, more than half of adults proclaim they “often” read the label of a processed food upon first purchase.  The same survey also found many consumers were skeptical of claims on the front of the packages like “low fat” and “high fiber.”

Some are celebrating the survey results as proof of the trend of increased food awareness and as a small victory on the road to slimming America’s waistline; not to mention the newfound apparent shrewdness, intelligent skepticism and vigilance by consumers when evaluating health claims on food packages. 

What’s not quite clear though is whether the same adults who “read” the labels know exactly what they’re looking for  nutritionally and exactly what it all means in the broader sense of the healthfulness of what they buy.

But hopefully in time — with the newer, tougher FDA cracking down to keep the food industry honest — the true nutritional value of what we eat will become all the more clear.

Check out Emily’s blog at
www.newsrecord.org/living/blogs.