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:
By Sarah Schmidt, Postmedia News
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:
Wow! What a scary story?
Shouldn't our govt check them?
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