EU gets smart on food health claims

I've written many times about the absurd claims processed foods make to lure customers. The food industry has made no secret that whole foods are not very profitable. The key is to break foods down, process them, and sell them for value added -- enhanced by making nutritional claims. I have made no secret about my disdain for this practice as it is flawed on so many levels. One problem is that it encourages a mentality that we can break our foods and needs as living creatures down into nutritional components. Rather than eating a carrot, you can eat a piece of white bread enriched with vitamin A. But this is not the same. Baby formula is the best example of a constant failed attempt by food scientists to dissect beneficial components, add them to the synthetic product, and never reach the same benefits as the original nature produces.

I've mentioned before that the idea to add nutritional claims to product advertisement started with cereals and has been utilized aggressively in that industry ever since. It started in America and has been embraced in America by governmental agencies such as the FDA and private organizations such as the American Heart Association (few people know that companies actually pay to put that on their product -- how's that for unbiased?).

This is all a long introduction to my happy announcement that today, EU authorities rejected dozens of health claims made by food companies. This was hailed as a sign that the EU will begin to use tougher scrutiny in evaluating claims by food companies without sound scientific backing. Many of those rejected will sound familiar to people used to walking around a grocery store or familiar with many of the "trendy" products being pushed these days. For instance, the EU rejected claims that special bacteria (so called probiotics) aided digestion and boosted the immune system (a claim that is reported to have led to billions in sales by those able to properly capitalize on the claim) -- largely yogurt companies. Danone's Activia brand claims it contains beneficial bacteria to aid in digestion, and its Actimel brand makes the same claim about boosting the immune system. These claims were actually subject to a successful $35 million class action lawsuit in the U.S.

Claims based on vitamin and mineral content, high fiber, etc. were largely left intact, however. So while I personally think more emphasis should be made that vitamin A isn't the same from a carrot or a piece of white bread, at least food companies (who are more often than not part of a multinational corporation with large European operations) are getting the message that if you're going to say something, you need to be able to back it up with some hard science. A step in the right direction I think.