Rep. Joe Farias (D-San Antonio) has proposed a bill (H.B. 779) that would impose a statewide penny-per-ounce tax on soft drinks, particular sweetened beverages and the powders and syrups used to make them. The tax would increase each year by the same percentage as the “most recent annual revised Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers.” The legislation, which purportedly aims to fight obesity and supplement funding for health programs in public elementary and secondary schools, calls for 80 percent of the tax revenue collected to go to the Texas Education Agency and 20 percent to the Department of State Health Services. The proposed tax would apply to all nonalcoholic, carbonated and noncarbonated beverages and mixes that contain natural or artificial sweeteners. Exceptions to the tax would be certain sports drinks, 100 percent fruit and vegetable juices, infant formula, milk products, and beverages containing sweeteners that do not add calories.…
Category Archives Issue 469
According to a news source, Germany’s Federal Cartel Office (BKA) has imposed €60 million (US$81.4 million) in fines against 11 chocolate and confectionary companies, including the German subsidiaries of Kraft Foods and Nestlé SA, for allegedly establishing a cartel in the late 2000s to fix prices. While Nestlé has reportedly indicated that it will challenge the fines, claiming that the allegations are unjustified and that BKA misinterpreted the law, a Kraft spokesperson has apparently confirmed that the company will pay its fine. BKA President Andreas Mundt said, “In 2007 raw materials prices for chocolate production such as milk and cocoa rose sharply. Companies obviously wanted to be sure they could pass these costs on to consumers. Competition with competitors was quickly switched off and consumers were burdened with price increases.” Prices reportedly rose by as much as 25 percent. Company offices were searched after a whistleblower came forward in 2008, and…
The U.K. Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has declined to uphold five complaints alleging that a TV commercial for Weetabix Ltd.’s Weetos breakfast cereal promoted “poor nutritional habits and an unhealthy lifestyle in children, because… it encouraged excessive consumption.” According to ASA, the ad in question showed a child eating Weetos for breakfast and later in the day as a snack, with the product’s tagline stating “FOR BREAKFAST AND BEYOND.” Rebutting the allegations, Weetabix reportedly said that “the ad was lighthearted but did not encourage excessive consumption” or poor nutritional habits, especially since the cereal advertised was “not a high fat, salt or sugar (HFSS) product as defined by the Food Standards Agency.” The company also argued that the portions shown in the commercial were consistent with marketing conventions and standards, as well as research indicating that consumers often ate Weetos for snacks and meals other than breakfast. “[Weetabix] considered that…
The U.K. Food Standards Agency (FSA) has published its “Forward Evidence Plan for 2013,” outlining its “priority science and evidence activities for the coming year.” Although subject to budgetary confirmation, the plan seeks to alert stakeholders to new and ongoing activities as well as identify additional research areas and sources of funding in support of FSA’s Strategic Plan 2010- 2015, which the agency last updated in January 2013. In particular, FSA has prioritized activities related to (i) “microbiological food safety, including campylobacter, E. coli, listeria and norovirus”; (ii)”food and feed hygiene policy”; (iii) “chemical safety of food, including metals and organic contaminants”; (iv) “the next round of the FSA strategic challenge cal”; and (v) “diet and health related work funded by the FSA in Scotland and Northern Ireland.” The agency has requested feedback on the plan by February 15, 2013. See FSA Press Release, January 31, 2013.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) have announced an April 17, 2013, public meeting in Washington, D.C., to provide information and receive public comments on agenda items and draft U.S. positions for discussion during the 41st Session of the Codex Committee on Food Labeling of the Codex Alimentarius Commission in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, Canada, on May 14–17. Agenda items include (i) implementation of the World Health Organization global strategy on diet, physical activity and health, including a proposed draft revision of the “Guidelines on Nutrition and Health Claims concerning Non-Addition of Sodium Salts”; (ii) guidelines for the production, processing, labeling, and marketing of organically produced foods, including use of ethylene as a sprouting inhibitor for onions and potatoes, and organic aquaculture; (iii) date marking; and (iv) the labeling of food derived from crops biofortified by natural selection. See…
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has announced a public meeting to discuss “the proposed rules to establish standards for the growing, harvesting, packing, and holding of produce for human consumption (the produce safety proposed rule) and for current good manufacturing practice and hazard analysis and risk-based preventative controls for human food (the preventative controls proposed rule).” Under the Food Safety Modernization Act, the new produce safety rules would impose “science- and risk-based standards for the safe production and harvesting of fruits and vegetables,” while the preventative controls rule would require both foreign and domestic food manufacturers “to develop a formal plan for preventing their food products from causing foodborne illness.” Slated for February 28, 2013, in Washington, D.C., the public meeting aims to solicit comments on the proposed measures and inform the ublic about the rulemaking process. FDA has asked interested parties to submit oral presentation requests by February 8…
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has issued a report titled “Attribution of Foodborne Illness, Hospitalizations, and Deaths to Food Commodities by using Outbreak Data, United States, 1998-2008,” based on data involving 17 food categories and the roughly 48 million people who “get sick from food eaten in the United States” each year. While produce is evidently responsible for more food-borne illness (46 percent) than other food categories, meat and poultry apparently cause more death (29 percent) and dairy “accounted for the most hospitalizations” (16 percent). CDC’s estimates are based on the 4,589 foodborne disease outbreaks reported over an 11-year span. The report cautions that the findings should not cause people to “avoid certain categories of food,” because many food-borne bacteria can be killed by cooking to proper temperatures and a varied diet is important to a healthy lifestyle. Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) Food…
U.S. Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.) has responded to a January 25, 2013, Federal Register notice describing a “new” Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) method of conducting “ongoing equivalence verifications of the regulatory systems of countries that export meat, poultry, or processed egg products to the United States.” According to DeLauro’s letter to U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Secretary Tom Vilsack, “it seems that FSIS fundamentally changed the process used to assess ongoing equivalency with our trade partners without publishing a single public notice in the Federal Register on the revisions or seeking public comment on the proposed changes. It appears that the agency has been implementing and refining these changes for several years.” She was particularly disturbed that FSIS has failed to disclose these changes in budgetary justification documents submitted to Congress since 2009. DeLauro also claimed in the letter that FSIS has exhibited “indifference to the advisory committees” that…
Dutch social and political science professors have presented a case study on marketing a functional food in the European Union (EU) to demonstrate that nontextual marketing, which the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) is apparently ill-equipped to regulate, plays a larger role in consumer purchasing decisions than textual product messages. Herman Lelieveldt and Cris Boonen, “EU Health Claims Regulation and the Marketing of Functional Foods: A Regulatory Void?,” 3 European Journal of Risk Regulation 577 (2012). They considered a marketing campaign for Optimel Control®, a yogurt drink first launched in the Netherlands in 2007 with great success but later withdrawn after expansion to other countries due to insufficient sales volume. It contained an ingredient that EFSA ruled in 2011 was not effective to control or manage weight. According to the study, the textual health claims constituted “a relatively small element in conveying the ‘stay in control’ message of Optimel Control.” Those claims,…
A study evaluating “five popular fast-food chains’ menus in relation to dietary guidance” has allegedly concluded that despite varied offerings, full menus “scored lower than 50 out of 100 possible points on the HEI-2005 [Healthy Eating Index- 2005].” Sharon Kilpatrick, et al., “Fast-food menu offerings vary in dietary quality, but are consistently poor,” Public Health Nutrition, January 2013. Researchers with Yale University’s Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity, Arizona State University and the National Cancer Institute analyzed the total nutritional content of menus from Burger King, McDonald’s, Subway, Taco Bell, and Wendy’s using the HEI-2005 to calculate scores for all 12 index components for a total of 100 points. Nine of these components evidently “assess adequacy of amounts of food groups and oils in relation to MyPyramid recommendations, whereas the remaining three are referred to as moderation components because they measure constituents that should be limited in the diet…
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