Cheerios and Truth in Labeling
Published May 14, 2009 @ 08:31AM PT
So while I was looking for bridesmaids' earrings the other day, I came across these delightful and sparkly things, which were described as "classic Hollywood glam". I couldn't help but smile, really accurate labeling is a precious commodity.
When it comes to food labels, as anyone with allergies knows firsthand, that's doubly true.
Consider Vitamin Water, a product marketed to appeal to the health conscious. Its vitamin content may not be absorbed, but its dose of sugar certainly will. This almost-but-not-quite-soda drink can seem like a break from the typical sugared beverage, but it's a difference only in degree.
Industry has responded to people's concern for their health by claiming that the junk we've already been eating was healthy for us all along. As if the problem with processed food was that we didn't believe nice things about it.
I was going to let the argument pass though, today's developing cereal theme notwithstanding, until I ran across this Reuters oped outlining the fury of right wing bloggers over the decision by the FDA to class Cheerios as a drug due to its health claims. High comedy:
... "It's fairly obvious to me why the Obama administration is going after Cheerios over possible deceptive advertising," says the Deadenders blog. "Babies love them more then him."
... "Washington raised ciggie taxes to pay for SCHIP expansion and are [sic] gearing up to raise soda taxes to pay for Obamacare," writes the reliably nutty Michelle Malkin. "No vice is safe from the health police. Dijon mustard and arugula exempted, of course."
"So I guess now the Communist-in-Chief will declare a War on Cereal," rants Ed Anger of the Weekly World News ...
Sean Hannity even did these clowns one better, calling this, along with a proposed soda tax, a war on American institutions. Erm, okay, dude. Try me on that one again when you solve your beef with Social Security.
But lo, General Mills has been claiming on their boxes that by eating Cheerios, "you can lower your cholesterol 4 percent in 6 weeks." That's a very specific health claim, of the sort that even a drug company would be extremely hesitant to make. Four percent? Six weeks? For everybody? Let's compare this to the full physicians' guide to Zocor (simvastatin), a drug actually approved by the FDA for the treatment of high cholesterol:
ZOCOR® is an HMG-CoA reductase inhibitor (statin) indicated as an adjunctive therapy to diet to:
• Reduce the risk of total mortality by reducing CHD deaths and reduce the risk of non-fatal myocardial infarction, stroke, and the need for revascularization procedures in patients at high risk of coronary events. (1.1)
• Reduce elevated total-C, LDL-C, Apo B, TG and increase HDL-C in patients with primary hyperlipidemia (heterozygous familial and nonfamilial) and mixed dyslipidemia. (1.2)
• Reduce elevated TG in patients with hypertriglyceridemia and reduce TG and VLDL-C in patients with primary dysbetalipoproteinemia. (1.2)
• Reduce total-C and LDL-C in adult patients with homozygous familial hypercholesterolemia. (1.2)
• Reduce elevated total-C, LDL-C, and Apo B in boys and postmenarchal girls, 10 to 17 years of age with heterozygous familial hypercholesterolemia after failing an adequate trial of diet therapy. (1.2, 1.3)
... In a study including 16 elderly patients between 70 and 78 years of age who received ZOCOR
40 mg/day, the mean plasma level of HMG-CoA reductase inhibitory activity was increased approximately 45% compared with 18 patients between 18-30 years of age. ...
Now that, that there, is a drug label. And every doctor on the planet is well aware that these drugs aren't always effective for every individual. That what works better in one patient may have no, or a negative effect on another.
You will note that nowhere in the list of recommended uses is there anything like a guarantee of a certain level of cholesterol reduction within a certain timeframe. You can be guaranteed that Merck spent years and many millions of dollars testing this drug in patient populations, and they won't go near such a degree of certainty.
The only place they add specific numbers, specific claims about the level of cholesterol reduction, is in reporting study data on people who'd already taken it. For these people, who have already tried it, Merck is willing to say, cholesterol was lowered by this much across the group. For people who haven't tried it, they indicate that it can reduce risk, or reduce elevated levels of this or that, but nowhere is there a claim as bold as the one on the Cheerios label.
General Mills even made what could be construed as an effective dosage claim: “eating two 1½ cup servings daily of Cheerios cereal reduced bad cholesterol when eaten as part of a diet low in saturated fat and cholesterol”.
This crosses a line, and I think the FDA was right to pull this trigger. It's wrong for packaging to raise false health expectations, something the vitamin and herbal supplement industry really has to toe the line on. You could never get away with making a claim that specific on a bottle of cinnamon extract or vitamin E capsules, why should you be able to do so on a cereal box?
You'll still be able to buy Cheerios in stores when this is over, but the box won't be making promises they can't deliver on. And that's what our regulators are there to make sure of.
(Photo credit: DRB62 on Flickr.)
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Comments (14)
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Author
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Natasha is an amateur eater with severe snarkolepsy and a c. 2002 blogging habit. She had a fabulous time studying ecological agriculture and policy at The Evergreen State College, and even did her homework while writing at various times for pacificviews.org, boomantribune.com, and mydd.com.
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With the poison baby food from China, the questionable feeding of farm raised fish in China and the poison toothpaste from India people began checking to see from where products were originating. How many have noticed that many items are distributed by American companies but do not say where they originate from. Is this a loophole? Ifit is someone had better close it PDQ!
Posted by michael sawyer on 05/15/2009 @ 03:28PM PT
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Yeah its a loophole.. They also say its made in the united states, but it doesnt say it was made by illegal aliens (not real U.S. citizens).. its a means of of getting cheap labor in the states, labeling it as US MADE instead of saying it was made in Mexico? Remember the uproar of jobs going to Mexico? well bring the workers here..
Posted by Joe Wilson on 05/19/2009 @ 02:11AM PT
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I've actually been wondering how long GM was going to get away with this. Seems like it took the FDA a lot longer to call them on the carpet than usual. I've seen literally dozens of FDA letters to farmers who were simply citing studies saying that some nutrient found in their crop had a certain health benefit. I've wondered many times how the FDA could find these tiny little farmers with no more than a small web site, but GM could advertise on national TV and not be called out.
In most circumstance I think less regulation is better, but the food and drug industries have clearly proven they can't be trusted to do the right thing for the consumer's health.
Posted by Mark R on 05/15/2009 @ 08:40PM PT
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I love cheerios. But not to lower my cholesterol. I always thought that the claims GM made about cheerios being able to lower cholesterol were 'iffy'. I'll be happy to buy my next box of cheerios and not have to read the claim on the box. Not to mention, my friends are always teasing me... 'ohhhh you're trying to lower your cholesterol'... no!! i'm twenty-one and i am very healthy. It's not only a false claim anymore though. People actually associate eating cheerios with lowering your cholesterol. That's quite ridiculous.
Posted by Danica Vitale on 05/16/2009 @ 08:19AM PT
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I find it interesting that the FDA is upset about the cholesterol-lowering health claims, yet they continue to think trisodium phosphate is an acceptable ingredient. Otherwise known as TSP; defined by wikipedia as: Trisodium phosphate (TSP), available at most hardware stores in white powder form, is a cleaning agent, food additive, stain remover and degreaser, commonly used to prepare surfaces for painting. --I noticed this years ago, when my children were young and I learned about reading labels. I decided I wasn't inclined to feed my family food that included a cleaning agent.
Posted by Deirdre Chisholm Stephens on 05/16/2009 @ 10:17AM PT
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remember though that lemon and vinegar are both considered to be "cleaning agents" but are fine for consumption. I would be more worried about what the physical effects of this chemical are on a growing body, more than the fact that its considered for cleaning.
Posted by Erin Ferguson on 05/18/2009 @ 06:28AM PT
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The FDA has expanded its territory and now treats all foods and supplements as ~drugs~! They say bioidentical hormones (naturally occurring in your body) are drugs. They tell cherry growers that they can't tout the health benefits of cherries. Meanwhile, they allow a drug company to get a patent on fish oil so it can be sold for $100 a bottle . . . They go after bioidentical hormones because drug company Wyeth is having problems with the horse urine that hurt women's health. This is a bunch of nonsense and the FDA is not serving the American people. They take money from drug companies and then approve their drugs, regardless of the countless and often dangerous side effects. And then they think our big problem is that Cheerios says you can lower your cholesterol by eating them . . . when combined with a diet low in fat? Give me a break!
Posted by Janice Moerschel on 05/16/2009 @ 01:22PM PT
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There is a nonsense element to it, but they do make very specific claims that they really shouldn't.
It'd be nice if the patent law ridiculousness was different, if the FDA wasn't a shockingly ineffective regulator, etc., but the fact is that the cumulative effect of all this type of advertising is deeply misleading. It's at least slightly less bad if people aren't being lied to about the value of eating industrialized food.
Posted by Natasha Chart on 05/16/2009 @ 06:12PM PT
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Janice, i think you bring up some very interesting points about how inefficient the FDA is. The taking of money from drug companies and other large industries is the main reason why so many dangerous substances are still allowed to be sold to the American people, and probably why it took so long for anything to be said about Cheerio's ad campaigns. However, they are the FOOD and Drug Administration, and saying that it "has expanded its territory" into food is a little much. This was its original purpose, to keep things like dead rat parts out of food because business wasn't regulating itself. It has only been drawn away from that in recent decades by the pull of large money being made in the drug industry.
Posted by Erin Ferguson on 05/18/2009 @ 06:37AM PT
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It is clear to me that they say that Cheerios may lower cholesterol when combined with a healthy diet. So will lots of things - including the healthy diet! People need to think for themselves. It is a fact that eating oats can lower cholesterol. So, any product with them as an ingredient "may" lower cholesterol. The operative word here is "may."
It also may not work . . . As far as I know, though, there is widespread scientific consensus about oats.
Posted by Janice Moerschel on 05/17/2009 @ 09:07AM PT
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Well, there's no law against oats. Nor does it seem that food manufacturers are prohibited from pointing out that oats are healthy.
But look, Cheerios aren't oats. There's no Cheerio grass. They are not functionally identical. Nor is a product made from oats necessarily going to inherit all its properties, particularly because no one really knows exactly why oats are healthy; maybe that's the part they take out. Wheat is a healthy grain, too, but danishes, not so much.
And let's look at that 'healthy diet' wording - what is that? What is a healthy diet?
If I said that 2 Hershey kisses a day, in combination with a healthy diet, could lower cholesterol, it might even be true for some people. That little milk chocolate along with a healthy, whole food-based diet, might work great. Some people might even find their cholesterol lowered by following it, but it doesn't mean that the chocolate kisses were responsible nor that they are healthy.
Food companies should stop making claims like this because people do put stock in them. Not everyone has time to become their own nutritionist and watch every label like a hawk. They must not be lied to or misled.
And really, I just hate the assumption that it's everyone's individual responsibility to figure out when they're getting lied to. Seems to me that the actual problem is all the lying.
Posted by Natasha Chart on 05/18/2009 @ 10:23AM PT
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Cheerios are supposed to be kin to oats though ground up into flour and formed into the cheerie little rings that claim to be a healthy way to start your day. Oats, as in "steel cut" oats, a lesser processed form of the "cereal" are supposed to have an effect on cholesterol. That is most likely where GM got the idea that they could make health claims. Of course if you eat a cereal with low fat or skim milk twice a day and have the rest of your food intake for the day conforming to a "low fat" diet you might lower your cholesterol from the, in many cases, increased fiber intake. I don't know... I eat the stuff as an occasional snack deeming it too low in fiber, protein and nutrients to be useful as a "breakfast food" let alone a regular part of my diet.
Posted by Grace E Graham on 05/19/2009 @ 12:24PM PT
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I understand the other comments made here, with some good points. But the manufacturer of Cheerios is not a drug company that pays the FDA. But wait! Maybe that's why they've been attacked by the FDA (ha, ha). Cheerios are a lot better than most processed cereals and, if their claim is that one's cholesterol ~may~ be lowered by eating Cheerios along with a healthy diet, then I see no problem. It is really a pretty worthless claim when you read the whole thing. But why go after Cheerios when we have much bigger problems with our food supply, with the dangerous drugs allowed on the market, and when the FDA itself recognizes its problems. I will try to find a link to a report that says the FDA doesn't have enough scientists and has a host of other major issues. The FDA is not protecting us. It is not protecting me by launching an attack on Cheerios. And it doesn't protect me by attacking bio-identical hormones.
Posted by Janice Moerschel on 05/19/2009 @ 12:56PM PT
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An unsubstantiated claim doesn't take a scientist away from other tasks to challenge it. I don't think "let the buyer beware" is appropriate in our food supply.
Posted by wendell otu'upu on 06/02/2009 @ 03:56PM PT
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