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Date Posted: 06:05:18 09/29/04 Wed
Author: J.R.Smith, c.f.t.,s.f.t., p.n.s. - ISSA, USSA, ISFN
Subject: Beware food companies' misleading health claims

Sept. 24, 2004, 11:27PM

Beware food companies' misleading health claims
By JANE E. BRODY
New York Times News Service

You may think that a genuine interest in consumer health prompts food companies to market products that claim to reduce the risk of heart disease or cancer or help people lose weight. Think again.

Many food companies are interested in one thing � the most efficient route to extra sales. The concerns and interests of consumers are fickle, and food companies are quick to cash in on them. In recent years, trends have shifted from low salt to high fiber to fat free and now to low in carbohydrates, high in antioxidants and omega-3 fatty acids, and free of trans fats. Food companies have introduced new, reformulated or repositioned products to satisfy every new vogue in nutrition, regardless of how well or poorly grounded they may be in science.

But in what has become a near free-for-all marketplace for health claims on food products, consumers often are convinced that the more they eat of these products, the healthier, or thinner, they are likely to be.

Once more, think again. Congress has made it extremely difficult for the Food and Drug Administration to closely regulate health-related claims for foods and supplements, and the agency is struggling to catch up with the flood of recent claims for low-carb products. Meanwhile, health claims and endorsements from organizations such as the American Heart Association and the American Diabetes Association often appear on products that nutrition specialists consider anything but healthful.

Seductive message

Dr. Marion Nestle, former head of nutrition and now professor of public health at New York University, calls such claims "calorie distracters" because they carry a subtle but highly seductive message that it is OK to eat unlimited amounts because the food is supposedly good for you.

These days, consumers can find many snacks advertised as low or lower in carbohydrates or as containing no trans fats, the heart-damaging substances formed when vegetable oils are hydrogenated. Hundreds of products carry the American Heart Association Food Certification Program heart check mark. To participate in the association's program, these products must meet the nutritional requirements established by the heart association, which parallel those set by the FDA and the Department of Agriculture for a product to make a coronary heart disease health claim.

But the criteria do not include low sugar content because there is not sufficient scientific evidence at this time that sugar is a risk factor for heart disease.

Thus, the heart association has endorsed General Mills' Cocoa Puffs cereal, a cup of which contains 120 calories, 14 grams of sugar and no fiber, and the company's Cookie Crisp cereal, with 120 calories and 13 grams of sugar per cup. Both products derive more than 40 percent of their calories from sugar � hardly a nourishing start to the day, even if they are low in fat.

Likewise, Post's Frosted Shredded Wheat, with 180 calories and 12 grams of sugar per cup, promotes itself as "A proud sponsor of the American Diabetes Association," a surprising bedfellow for a sweetened cereal, even one made from whole grain. The diabetes association has now changed its policy and will no longer automatically permit such statements from companies that contribute to it, a spokesman said.

The problem with such questionable health claims, Nestle said, is that they give people permission "to eat as much of them as they want."

Still junk food

"Yes, it's great to get the trans fats out of chips and pretzels," she said, "but these foods still have calories and they're still junk food."

If junk foods were a small fraction of what Americans consume, this would be of little concern to professionals who see their role as protectors of the public's health. But they're not.

The latest analysis of foods Americans eat, based on 24-hour consumption reports from 4,760 adult participants in the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, revealed that at least 30 percent of total calories come from sugary and salty snacks and drinks: sweets, desserts, soft drinks, alcoholic beverages, salty snacks and fruit-flavored drinks.

The researcher who did the analysis, Dr. Gladys Block, a professor of epidemiology and public health nutrition at the University of California, Berkeley, said of her findings: "What is really alarming is the major contribution of 'empty calories' in the American diet. We know people are eating a lot of junk food, but to have almost one-third of Americans' calories coming from those categories is a shocker."

Low-carb traps

The junk food marketing prize goes to so-called low-carb products, "an astonishing 930" of which "have been introduced to U.S. markets in the last five years," according to the June issue of Consumer Reports.

Food companies have produced snacks and sweets containing small amounts of so-called "net carbs" by replacing some of the refined flour and caloric sweeteners in the traditional products with dietary fiber, starches resistant to digestive enzymes and sugar alcohols that, it is believed, pass unabsorbed through the human digestive tract.

As Consumer Reports points out, if you follow the Atkins diet but fail to pay attention to calories, you could easily land on a fat farm or seriously malnourished.

Adding up calories

Staying within the prescribed carb limit, the consumer organization showed that in the course of one day you could consume a 12-ounce Michelob Ultra beer, two 1-ounce bags of Atkins Crunchers chips, one cup of Atkins Endulge vanilla ice cream, two Carborite chocolate chip cookies, one-eighth of an Entenmann's Carb-Counting cake and 10 pieces of Russell Stover Low Carb Pecan Delight chocolates � for a grand total of 1,440 calories. And you would still not have eaten any foods that supplied your body with the nutrients required for good health.

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