The new year is here and with that billions of people will be changing the way they eat by looking at food labels. When researching this, I found that the labels that we rely so heavily upon, are actually allowed to be false! It turns out that the FDA allows a 20% margin of error on all food labels. This may seem minor, yet for people who are watching every calorie, gram of fat, carb, and protein; this could actually slow their progress down! Over the years I have encouraged my clients to cut back on their processed foods, due to chemicals, and additives. This is one more reason to get them out of your diet!
As an example … look at this insert on the all too famous “Juicy Juice”; the labels are misleading.
100% What? Take a quick look at the product name: Juicy Juice All-Natural 100% Juice Orange Tangerine. Reads as if it is made solely from Oranges and Tangerines. WRONG! It is 100% juice but in fact, most of the juice is from apples. In finer print, once can read “Flavored juice blend from concentrate with other natural flavors & added ingredients“. Tricky! According to the FDA,
The manner in which the latter statement is presented makes it less conspicuous and prominent than the other label statements and vignettes and therefore less likely to be read or understood by consumers at the time of purchase.
Nestlé confirmed the company had received the letter on the Juicy Juice products. “We are intending to fully cooperate with the FDA in bringing this matter to a conclusion,” a spokesperson said (source).
It seems each year there is a list of letters that are generated from the FDA to producers of products. On the FDA website you can actually go through the long list of letters and view them. If you are having doubts about a product this might be a helpful link to check out. FDA Web list.
AKA
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