Disingenuous Labeling

Feb 08, 2010 Published under Advertising (good vs misleading), Health, Marketing, United States

Manipulation of serving sizes is a serious problem. At the end of the day consumers need to use common sense and look for nutritionally rich foods and not hide in ’100 calorie’ claims of products with empty calories – ie chips, soda, etc. But it would help society if reasonable standards were enforced so that unscrupulous food companies wouldn’t post silly claims about calorie count or sodium content in the front of the labels, that only a careful observer would realize assumes consumption of a fraction of the product.

This article describes the FDA’s efforts to zero in on the problem. But it doesn’t mention what most of the world – except the US – does. They require every product to list nutritional impact per 100 grams. I used to think that is confusing because you don’t necessarily consume 100 grams of that product. But it creates a benchmark that is easy to compare. And it doesn’t have to exclude an additional column for nutritional facts per portion.

False Food Labeling

The Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) has sent a report to the FDA charging several food and beverage manufacturers with mislabeling their products. CSPI also recommends reforming package labeling format, especially the nutrition information and ingredient lists. CSPI Charges Brands With Mislabeling In FDA Report Karlene Lukovitz The Center for Science in [...]
Making Adulterers Pay

Pom Wonderful did something, err, wonderful for the food industry by fighting to uphold the standards of the category in which it leads, pomegranate juice, to the point of successfully suing unscrupulous new entrants who tried to ride on its coattails by marketing lower grade products as if they were the real thing: "Consumers buy [...]
KIND PLUS Mango Macadamia Wins BEST PRODUCT AWARD

Only one food product was selected from among thousands at the Natural Products Expo East in Boston last weekend as the Best Product of the Year: PeaceWorks’ KIND PLUS Mango Macadamia nutritional bar. Here is a report from Gourmet Retailer: The Mango Macadamia flavor of KIND Plus – the first new line of products since [...]
Deception by Food-Industrial-Complex

Enough with such manipulation by the food-industrial-complex! First Coca-Cola asserts that Coke is all natural! Then the Corn Refiners assert that High Fructose Corn Syrup is all natural, without regard to evidence, or to the damage that this causes to our bodies. And most recently 10 of the largest food companies create a self-serving industry-designed [...]
Good HouseKeeping Names KIND among Best 100 Products of the Year

KIND was the only nutritional bar to make it into Good Housekeeping’s listing of the 100 best convenience foods. This follows on KIND Mango Macadamia being chosen as the Best Product of the Year out of all thousands of natural food products introduced at the Natural Products Expo earlier this fall (Oct 2008).

Daniel Lubetzky