The Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) has released its 2013 “Xtreme Eating” report, which singled out restaurant foods that are allegedly laden with excessive calories, fat and sodium. Claiming that some restaurants seem to “scientifically engineer[] these extreme meals with the express purpose of promoting obesity, diabetes, and heart disease,” the report condemns menu items from The Cheesecake Factory, Maggiano’s Little Italy and other retailers that in some cases purportedly contain as much as “four-and-a-half days’ worth” of recommended fat and more than a day’s worth of recommended calories. “I hope the Obama Administration promptly finalizes overdue calorie labeling rules for chain restaurants,” said CSPI Executive Director Michael Jacobson. “Not only do Americans deserve to know what they’re eating, but, as our Xtreme Eating ‘winners’ clearly indicate, lives are at stake. And perhaps when calories become mandatory on menus, chains will begin innovating in a healthier direction,…
Category Archives Other Developments
The New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) has published the results of a recent poll asking readers whether governments should regulate sugar-sweetened beverages. After presenting two arguments for and against government regulation, the poll received 1,290 votes from readers in 75 countries, with 68 percent of voters favoring “regulation of sugar-sweetened beverages to help reduce the burden of obesity.” In particular, the NEJM pollsters noted that the one outlier was the United States, where only 58 percent of voters favored regulation compared to the 84 percent from other countries. “Readers opposed to government regulation of sugar-sweetened beverages pointed out that the problem of obesity involves much more than the excess consumption of sugary drinks and that limitations on portion size or taxes on soft drinks will not alter the fundamental issue—that people need to change the way they live their lives,” concluded the “Clinical Decisions” article, which also included reader…
The Center for Food Safety (CFS) and the Animal Legal Defense Fund (ALDF) are petitioning the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for an immediate reduction in the allowable levels of ractopamine—a controversial drug used to boost growth and leanness in meat production—and to study the drug’s potential effects on human health and animal welfare. The petition was reportedly filed days after Russia announced that it would require meat it imports to be tested and certified free of ractopamine—a move that jeopardizes the more than $500 million worth of U.S. beef and pork exported to that country annually. According to CFS staff attorney Elisabeth Homes, “The continued use and abuse of ractopamine in our food supply needs to be put in check. FDA must do its job of assessing risks, questioning health impacts, and providing better solutions for our food system. American families and, potentially, the nation’s economy are at…
The Council of Better Business Bureaus’ National Advertising Division (NAD) has reportedly decided to review “no crash later” claims made by Living Essentials LLC about its caffeinated energy supplement 5-Hour Energy® after The New York Times published a January 2, 2013, article questioning the scientific evidence behind such assertions. According to media sources, NAD ruled in 2007 that Living Essentials could not support its unequivocal “no crash” claims, even though its product evidently causes less of an energy level reduction than beverages made by its competitors. As a result, Living Essentials modified its labeling to include an asterisk on its “no crash later” declaration, but NAD has apparently advised the company to drop the claim altogether or submit to a compliance review. See Law360, January 3, 2013. The claim now facing NAD scrutiny also caught the attention of Times writer Barry Meier, who noted that energy drink manufacturers demand premium prices…
Science Writer Gary Taubes, who authored Why We Get Fat, writes in Nature magazine that obesity is not a matter of energy in-energy out, but is rather a “hormonal, regulatory defect.” In his December 13, 2012, article titled “Treat obesity as physiology, not physics,” Taubes bases this conclusion on endocrinology and calls for better research into hormonal theories about why we get fat. To that end, he has co-founded the Nutrition Science Initiative, a nonprofit organization “dedicated to reducing the economic and social burden of obesity and obesity-related chronic disease by improving the quality of science in nutrition and obesity research.” Among other matters, the initiative will “fund and facilitate the trials necessary to rigorously test the competing hypotheses, beginning with inpatient feeding studies that will rigorously control dietary interventions for participants so that we know unambiguously the effects of macronutrients— protein, fat and carbohydrates—on weight and body fat.” Taubes…
The Ranchers-Cattlemen Action Legal Fund (R-CALF USA) sent a December 10, 2012, letter to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) requesting the immediate suspension of imports of ruminants and ruminant products from Brazil after the country notified the World Organization for Animal Health (OIE) about a confirmed case of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) detected in a 13-year-old cow that died two years ago. R-CALF USA also asked that the suspension “remain in place until [the] agency conducts a thorough and probing investigation to determine the risk of introducing BSE into the U.S. from Brazil,” and noted that “should [the agency] choose to resume such imports from Brazil, [it] must first initiate a public rulemaking with notice and opportunity for comment.” According to an R-CALF USA press release, Brazilian officials in early 2011 subjected the cow to one of two primary tests for mad cow diseas —a histopathological test—that indicated the…
The Danish Consumer Council and Danish Ecological Council, in conjunction with the Department of Environmental Engineering at the Technical University of Denmark, have reportedly developed a database intended to help consumers identify products that may contain nanomaterials. The database evidently includes a description of each nanotechnology involved; rates of purported exposure risks to professional end-users, consumers and the environment; and potential hazards to human health and the environment by means of color coding. Food packaging materials are said to have incorporated nanoparticles to prolong shelf life and control microbial agents in packaged foods. Danish Ecological Council chemical expert Lone Mikkelsen reportedly said, “We are concerned that . . . too many nanomaterials are introduced to the market, before we know the full effects on humans and the environment.” Consumers will apparently be able to search the database to see if a certain product contains nanomaterials or is marketed as a…
In the ongoing battle over whether the government should regulate food ads targeting children, the Food Marketing Workgroup (FMW), a coalition of more than 80 health groups and nutritionists, is putting pressure on Nickelodeon and its parent company, Viacom, to adopt nutrition guidelines for foods marketed to children, particularly foods that license Nickelodeon characters such as SpongeBob SquarePants and Dora the Explorer. More than 55 health organizations and 30 prominent nutritionists, physicians and other experts signed a December 3, 2012, letter to Nickelodeon and Viacom urging them to implement stronger nutrition standards for the foods marketed to kids on Viacom’s various channels and that bear images of its characters. The group notes that although Viacom has taken some small steps in the right direction, it lags behind other children’s entertainment companies such as The Walt Disney Co. and ION Television, which have adopted comprehensive policies that apply nutrition standards to all…
A Change.org petition started by a high school student urges PepsiCo Americas Beverages and Gatorade Canada to remove brominated vegetable oil (BVO) from their products, citing a December 12, 2012, Scientific American article allegedly linking the stabilizer to “impaired neurological development, reduced fertility, early onset of puberty and altered thyroid hormones.” Garnering more than 180,000 signatures, the petition argues that BVO is banned in both the European Union and Japan, where Gatorade sports beverages do not contain the ingredient. “You put slick ads on TV encouraging people like me to buy your products, but it’s shocking that you have a flame retardant chemical called ‘brominated vegetable oil’ in some flavors,” opines the petitioner. “Please stop deceiving consumers and remove this chemical from your products.” In a related development, the U.K. Food Standards Agency (FSA) has issued a call for research on the occurrence of brominated flame retardants (BFRs) in food…
Consumer Reports magazine has allegedly identified bacterial contamination as well as antibiotic-resistant bacteria and veterinary drug residues in pork chop and ground-pork samples purchased from U.S. grocery stores. According to an analysis in the January 2013 edition of the magazine, 69 percent of the 198 pork samples in question purportedly contained Yersinia enterocolitica; 11 percent contained Enterococcus; and 3 to 7 percent contained Salmonella, Staphylococcus aureus, or Listeria monocytogenes. In addition, the magazine reported that 13 of 14 Staphylococcus samples isolated from pork were resistant to antimicrobials, as were six of eight Salmonella samples, 12 of 19 Enterococcus samples, and 121 of 132 Yersinia samples. Consumer Reports has also claimed that approximately one-fifth of 240 pork products analyzed in a separate test “harbored low levels of the drug ractopamine,” a growth promoter used in U.S. pork production but banned in the European Union, China and Taiwan. Consumers Union, the policy…
