European Stars And Stripes (Newspaper) - April 11, 1989, Darmstadt, Hesse                                To your health la / Jih i of a i m f to i  Muti " i  i Whir by to til. By theft ution in Joann  of a Tuiai product my by . Diamond los Angeles times not satisfied with plenty americans want food pure and ported unblemished but untreated plump but no artificially aligned i should be absolutely natural us As it came from nature but Low in Salt cholesterol and saturated fat and High in Liber and Vitanis Ever responsive food manufacturers give us goods billed As natural organic no sodium Low Cal even Lile quickly queuing up along the cutting Edge of science they now provide More Calcium and loss saturated fat eager to Tell us Light on the Roll o1 the Label How they re helping to prevent osteoporosis and heart disease unfortunately font and Backol labels May not jibe1 sometimes one Givel health and the other Takesh away. A no cholesterol shortening May list among its ingredients saturated ats that Spur our cholesterol production. The Low fat soup promising reduced risk of hear disease also increases that risk with its High blood pressure raising Salt Content. The question is How Best to protect the Public against such abuses of us _ Trust alternatively one might question whether these Are abuses and whether the Public lib has much Trust and therefore needs outside Protection. Take the natural foods with their connotation of something presented As it was constituted in nature unadulterated. Used with foods natural also implies Good and healthy bread Mold and crude Oil Are also natural but neither is desirable in a die. Only the department of agriculture is More specific about the word As applied to the meal and poultry products it regulates they can t contain added color or artificial ingredients and must be minimally processed Frozen dried perhaps Cut up Lor packaging. Some foods ingredients clearly justify the Label Laura Scudder s All natural Peanut Bulter Alains just peanuts. That s ally Miller s. 100 percent natural unprocessed bran has one ingredient. 100 percent unprocessed red wheat bran Bigelow herbal Garden All natural cinnamon Orange Herb Tea has multiple ingredients All patently natural cinnamon Hibiscus Lowers apples Rose hips Orange Peel malted Barley natural flavors. Other food labels seem to stretch or contract the word s Conn Lalton. Nature May mean that All the ingredients technically speaking Are found in nature natural yogurts a from being us cultured milk and a Flavouring May include sugar Corn sweetener modified Lood starch Gelatin eggs turmeric All natural Johnston Sor Cream tapioca and pectin. Mountain High natural Yogurt and the natural 1 fruit this in "v.s, very special All natural a Jovial Yogurt is Only fruit like As in peach Corn syrup peaches modified food starch natural flavors citric Aci annatto turmeric sometimes impressive percentages ultimately nonsense imply even greater naturalness. Capri Sun s 100 percent natural Orange beverage Lor example is actually Only 10 percent Orange juice. Its contents Are water hug fructose Corn sweetener concentrated Orange juice citric acid and natural Orange Haver similarly Nabisco s 100 percent bran Cereal contains "100 percent wheat  sugar malted Barley Lour Salt Tig juice and prune juice the juices elsewhere described a naturally Sweet despise the added sugar. Mora absurdly aunt Jemima s Butler Lite natural butter flavor syrup contains no Butler but something1 called natural Butler  Upton s naturally decaffeinated Tea in t decaffeinated by nature but washed in pure sparkling Spring Waler and effervescence like that found in Mineral water and club soda and natural brew Coffee filters Are who d have guessed in _ a natural Brown paper that has t been bleached White some of these labels do seem like false advertising on their front but there s nothing secret anyone with two eyes can see the facts on the Back. When Consumers can self protect do they still require government help regulatory or legislative Reading Fine print takes time of course. We Don t deserve this. We work a honest Day and we want an honest Deal says Bruce Silverglade director of Legal affairs for the Center for science in. The Public interest in Washington which urges More comprehensive regulation of food Labelling and deceptive claims. The Law traditionally has recognized that you can t Correct a headline in Small print he adds and you can t Correct the Irani of a Label with the Backol a  still natural claims Are comparatively easy or Consumers to evaluate. Other claims seem More difficult How Many calories qualifies As Low calorie How lean is lean meat and the food and drug administration or department of agriculture set standards to which manufacturers must conform in making such claims. There Are. Regulations covering sodium . Sodium free Means less than 5. Milligrams per serving calories . Bowl calorie Means less than 40 calories per serving and leanness of meat and proposed regulations covering cholesterol Content. ,. They May also regulate disease prevention claims statements that relate a nutrient to a disease or the. Prevention of a disease says Elizabeth Campbell chief of the Fra s regulations and Industry activities Branch. At the moment such claims High Liber prevents cancer Low cholesterol prevents heart disease would make the food subject to the Fra s drug clearance rules but the Agency wants to make it possible Tor food labels to educate the Public about such discoveries. The science is growing up so fast the Fra can t just say we Don t believe thai " says Lille Taylor Fra supervisory consumer Sally officer. We Don t want to deny something that might be useful to  so with a lot of advice and pressure the regulators Are working up guidelines that would permit such educational Labelling while avoiding its problems the difficulty of determining scientific consensus behind each claim of keeping manufacturers from touting the health Benefit of one ingredient while obscuring the danger of others the Low fat High Salt product and of standardizing wording so that manufacturers educate rather than promo Sithay have even suggested a new Isle Agency Agency just to handle the new Toad. Ii almost seems Bellert let  their diet and health adv co. Including recommendations for calorie and sodium consumption from the scientific Community  restrict the front of food labels to words like soup modified by vegetable Yummy and Good on the Back there would be required disclosure of All ingredients and their nutritional components so Consumers could themselves pick out foods that give them the kind and amount of nutrition they want. And every time we Frel that we May have deprived the world of a potent and objective educational Lorce by not permitting Lood companies to teach health and disease prevention we can just consider what Many of them did with  Page 16 the e stars and stripes tuesday april 11,1989