And….Big Soda continues with the denials (From USA Today):

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Cocoa Pebbles are Gluten Free!

22 Dec The Trouble With Sugar

16 Dec

This 2004 BBC News investigation shows us how easy it is to pack sugar into food intended for kids (albeit in the UK), as well as how easy it is for the sugar industry to influence scientific panels charged with reviewing the health effects of sugar. The video is 40 minutes long, but well worth a watch.

Has Michelle Obama Given up on Reducing Sugar in Kids’ Diets?

Dr. Marion Nestle asked a couple of days ago on her blog, has the Let’s Move Campaign given up on healthy diets for kids? While I share Dr. Nestle’s concerns, I don’t want us to forget about the Partnership for a Healthier America which was “created in conjunction with – but independent from – Let’s Move! ”

It  is the “Healthy Weight Commitment Foundation”  that has promised Mrs. Obama  in a signed agreement with the Partnership for a Healthier America  to reduce 1 trillion calories in their products by 2012, and 1.5 trillion calories in their products by 2015. The HWCF is a coalition “that brings together more than 80 retailers, food and beverage manufacturers, sporting goods and insurance companies, trade associations and NGOs”

Let’s Move is the physical activity tool in the toolbox of the Partnership for a Healthier America, while the HWCF is working on healthy diets.

When the HWCF announcement was made in 2010, Mrs. Obama shared the stage with David Mackay,  who was the President and CEO of Kellogg’s and Chair of the HWCF at the time.

I counted the number of times they both referred to reducing sugar intake.

Mrs. Obama – 7

Mr. Mackay – 0

Still, a look at the HWCF website member page, where members can link to their plans to reduce calories in their products, Coca-Cola, for one, appears to be living up to what was promised in the video with their “Live Positively” initiative which can be summed up in three main points:

Though what I’m not clear on is what this means for the overall Coca-Cola product portfolio. Are sales of regular Coca-Cola the same, and now even more people are drinking sugar-sweetened beverages, albeit less sweet?

The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation has committed to supporting an independent group of scientists who will define the measures that will be used to track progress and determine whether “the program is making a significant difference for our Nation’s children.” The HWCF has committed to an annual progress report to the Partnership.

This is what we should be watching for.

Be a Mind Sticker

1 Dec

Big Food More Stringent on Sugar Labeling than Institute of Medicine

27 Sep

Dr. Marion Nestle blogged today about the latest incarnation of nutrition labels designed for the front of food packages.  The purpose of putting labels on the front of food packages is to help consumers make sense of the nutritional value of a product quickly, without having to stand and gawk at the back of a package.

The Grocery Manufacturers Association and the Food Marketing Institute, trade associations which together represent “approximately 70 percent of retail food and beverage products,” have voluntarily designed their own version of the front-of package label.1

The problem is, a standardized front-of-package labeling system is currently under review by the FDA.  The FDA has asked the Institute of Medicine to make a recommendation on what to include on front-of package labels, and the process isn’t finished yet.

Usually, when an industry takes voluntary action, the motivating factor is an attempt to ward off more restrictive regulations. And this may, in fact, be the case when it comes to including “good for you” nutrients on the front of the package (see Dr. Nestle’s comments.)

But what is really unbelievable, is that the voluntary label recommended by Big Food, is MORE restrictive when it comes to sugar than what the IOM has recommended to date. Big Food is putting the total sugar content right there on the front. The IOM has recommended AGAINST putting total sugar content on the front. Here’s their logic:

Total Sugars

• There is a lack of scientific agreement about the amount of sugars that can be consumed in a healthy diet and about potential adverse health effects of sugars beyond an effect on dental caries. Thus, it is difficult to conclude that total sugars intake is of sufficient public health concern to be included in FOP rating systems.
• Total sugars include those naturally present in fruits, vegetables, and fat free or low fat dairy products, which are considered foods to encourage.

Added Sugars

*Despite the overall increase in calories that they provide to the American diet, at this time evidence and agreement are lacking about adverse health effects of added sugars, the exceptions being the extra calories that they contribute to a diet and their dilution of essential nutrient intake.
• An analytical test that can accurately determine added sugar content is unavailable, leaving the sharing of proprietary product formulations as the only apparent option for monitoring product compliance with established criteria.
• Added sugars are not included in the Nutrition Facts panel, so including added sugars in FOP system criteria would lead to inconsistencies between the Nutrition Facts panel and FOP symbols.

Does that seem strange to you?

Are Retro Sodas Sweetened with Real Sugar? Or High Fructose CANE Syrup?

As public opinion of high fructose corn syrup continues to plummet, some food manufacturers are switching back to “real sugar”. Pepsi Throwback is a prime example. “Made with Real Sugar” is printed on the front of the can, and the ingredients list names “sugar”  as the sweetener.

When “sugar” appears on the ingredients list of a product, according to FDA regulations, “the term sugar shall refer to sucrose, which is obtained from sugar cane or sugar beets.”

So that means granulated sugar is used to sweeten Pepsi Throwback, right?

It is not unheard of to sweeten beverages with granulated sugar. But beginning in the 1940’s, a product called “medium invert sugar (MIS), a solution in which one-half of the sucrose has been inverted, came to be widely used in the soft-drink industry.”1

Tom Wilson, a technical services manager at Imperial Sugar Company in Port Wentworth, GA, discussed the use of invert sugar in an article published by foodproductdesign.com last month:

Wilson explains that sucrose in beverages generally comes from cane or beet sugar. Processors then dissolve that sugar in water to yield liquid sucrose with a specific color, concentration and pH, or take the process a few steps further by adding acid to hydrolyze the liquid sucrose into liquid invert sugar.

Most beverage makers opt for the liquid forms because they’re “much easier to handle than a bulk truck of dried sugar or 50-lb. super-sacks that you need to open, put into a tank, add water, monitor the concentration—all those things that are already done when you buy the liquid,” he says. And by getting inversion out of the way, you avoid potential taste changes in the can or bottle. The degree of inversion is up to the user, Wilson notes, and the finished liquid invert is very similar in viscosity, pH, flow characteristics and concentration to HFCS. “That’s an easy transition for a bottler to make.”

When a food manufacturer switches back to “real sugar”, chances are, they are actually switching back to invert sugar.

I have two reactions:

1) If the health concerns about “free fructose” are valid, and beverage makers are, in fact, using invert sugar, then the products using so-called “real sugar” contain free fructose. Medium invert sugar consists of 50% sucrose, 25% glucose, and 25% fructose. Full invert sugar has no sucrose at all, and is 50% glucose and 50% fructose. The most commonly used form of high fructose corn syrup,  HFCS-55, is 45% glucose and 55% fructose.

2) If beverage manufacturers are using invert sugar, but labeling it as sugar, then this may be a case of deceptive labeling. Invert sugar has its own FDA definition. Jones Pure Cane Cola properly lists “inverted cane sugar” in its ingredients.

HFCS was named high fructose corn syrup because it had more fructose than regular corn syrup. Now, due to the demonization of fructose, the Corn Refiner’s Association is attempting to re-brand HFCS to “corn sugar”.

Perhaps we need a new perspective.

Invert sugar has more fructose than table sugar. So, instead of re-naming high fructose corn syrup to corn sugar, shouldn’t we be renaming invert sugar to high-fructose cane (or beet) syrup?
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