Can We Trust Food and Beverage Labels?

Current food and beverage labelling requirements are exceedingly slack and consumers have a difficult time determining their integrity. Finding healthy food at the grocery store can be challenging, especially when we are up against multi-billion dollar companies that have a long, proven history of misleading consumers. Food and beverage fraud is defined as the act of purposely misrepresenting, altering, mislabeling, substituting or tampering with any food product at any point along the food chain.

Studies indicate that transparent information on food labels is the most desired characteristic requested by consumers. Unfortunately, grocery stores are full of products with cunningly crafted trigger words that describe flavors, ingredients, sources, and desirable qualities like sugar-free, fruit-flavored, light, no cholesterol, low-calorie, gluten-free, low-carb, low-trans-fat, multigrain and natural. But are these claims accurate? In recent years, there has been very little headway in convincing federal regulators to increase oversight or to improve definitions on labels.

Well over 325 class action lawsuits have been filed by advocacy groups seeking to combat the surge of deceptive labelling. Plaintiffs claim that the food and beverage giants are seeking to profit from the health food movement, but without making any meaningful changes to their farming, production and labelling practices. What’s under fire in the courtroom is company marketing strategies, called greenwashing, that dupe consumers into believing they are supporting food service companies whose practices align with their values. Dozens of these lawsuits are settled quietly with a little monetary inducement, and with minimal or no changes to the contested labels.

Confusing labels, misleading health claims and astronomical profits have become kissing cousins. For example, eggs come with over 15 interchangeable classifications, such as pasture raised, caged, cage free, free range, organic, vegetarian, enriched colony, Omega 3 enriched, white, brown, A, AA, small, medium, large and jumbo. A disturbing sidenote is that cage free or pasture raised are not necessarily organic, and organic is not necessarily cage free or pasture raised.

Labeling regulations for farmed salmon are so weak that companies do not have to disclose whether their salmon are wild caught or farmed. Farmed salmon swim in aerated, tightly packed enclosures, along with their own feces, antibiotics and other chemicals that not only denigrate the salmon, but the surrounding ecosystems as well. Mass produced Grade A chickens are often contaminated with antibiotic-resistant pathogens. After slaughter, they are bathed in chemical disinfectants.

The FDA lacks any requirements for how much fruit must be present in a product with the label “made with real fruit,” meaning that this label doesn’t necessarily indicate any fruit at all. Furthermore, labels with red barns and green grass dupe consumers into believing they are supporting family farms.

So much has been written about the dangers of ingesting too much sugar, so the food and beverage industry switched gears and now entice consumers with 56 new varieties of sugar. Instead of sugar, beverages now contain synthetic and inorganic ingredients like phosphoric acid, aspartame, potassium benzoate, sucralose (chemical formula C12H19Cl3O8), caffeine, acesulfame potassium (Ace-K) and dozens of others.

Manufactured with a combination of modified phenylalanine and aspartic acid, the artificial sweetener aspartame is almost 200 times sweeter than sugar and used in assorted products like Diet Coke, chewing gum, breakfast cereals, and ice cream. While the FDA considers aspartame and acesulfame potassium as generally safe (GRAS), some studies have linked these sweeteners to health concerns. 

IARC classifies aspartame as a possible carcinogen to humans. Scientific studies suggest that acesulfame potassium may also be carcinogenic and research on its effects on diabetes risk is mixed. The WHO has also classified these artificial sweeteners as possibly carcinogenic, while at the same time maintaining the current level of safe daily intake. JECFA has a daily intake status quo, which should raise serious questions for buyers of the over 6,000 products that contain aspartame. If you insist on drinking soda, it would be best to do so in moderation. It might also be wise not to ingest too many products with artificial sweeteners over a short period of time.

A bill introduced in Congress seeks to standardize labels and to develop a system of symbols that clearly and concisely convey pertinent facts in order to be able to determine whether a product is truly healthy. The measure would also direct federal regulators to define terms like healthy, whole grains, natural, sustainable and humane. This bill is backed by holistic practitioners, nutritionists and health food advocates, but opposition from corrupt politicians and food industry lobbyists is likely to complicate its passage.

Solutions include…

• Eat organic foods and plant-based foods made with 100% whole grains, fruits, and vegetables.
• Avoid processed foods.
• Labels should be consistent and written in layman’s terms in order to ensure consumer understanding over socio-demographic lines such as age, education and nationalities.
• Labels must clearly classify nutritional quality and ensure traceability.
• Labels must comply with strict safety standards and should include a list of synthetic materials and chemical hazards from farm to the table.
• Labels must reveal if foods and beverages contain food coloring, additives, preservatives, bioengineering, glyphosate, herbicides, insecticides, additives, preservatives, or any other chemicals.
• Labels must respect religious beliefs.
• Federal regulatory organizations like the FDA, USDA, CDC and AAFCO should be restructured and the culpable administrators and politicians taking bribes should be prosecuted.  

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