U.K. researchers have published the findings of a comparison of calorie counts on menu items in restaurants that feature labeling of those counts and in restaurants without such labeling. Dolly R.Z. Theis & Jean Adams, "Differences in energy and nutritional content of menu items served by popular UK chain restaurants with versus without voluntary menu labelling: A cross-sectional study," PLOS One, October 16, 2019. The researchers compared offerings from "the 100 most popular UK restaurant chains by sales" and found that 42% of the restaurants offered nutritional information, and 13 of those voluntarily provided menu labeling. The researchers were reportedly able to establish that restaurants that provide calorie labeling on menus offered food with 45% less fat and 60% less salt, though they could not identify whether the labeling caused the companies to formulate products with lower fat and salt contents.
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The United Kingdom has launched a public consultation on a proposal to restrict some types of advertising for foods high in fat, sugar and salt (HFSS). The consultation targets "volume-based price promotions of HFSS food and drink that encourage people to buy more than they need, for example, ‘buy one, get one free’ and free refills of sugary soft drinks" as well as ads placed at "main selling locations in stores, such as checkouts, aisle ends and store entrances." The government further seeks input on "which businesses, products and types of promotions should be included in the restrictions," "definitions for HFSS products, price promotions and locations in stores" and "how businesses can put this into practice and whether they will face any difficulties."
Aaron Carroll, a professor at the Indiana University School of Medicine, argues in a New York Times editorial that “panic-du-jour” about unhealthy foods encourages people to unnecessarily live “in terror or struggling to avoid certain foods altogether." Carroll asserts that the repeated condemnation of various food ingredients—including fat, cholesterol, meat, monosodium glutamate, genetically modified organisms and gluten—“shows how susceptible we are to misinterpreting scientific research and how slow we are to update our thinking when better research becomes available.” For example, fewer than one percent of Americans have a wheat allergy or celiac disease, Carroll states, but at least one in five regularly chooses gluten-free foods. “Gluten-free diets can lead to deficiencies in nutrients such as vitamin B, folate and iron. Compared with regular bagels, gluten-free ones can have a quarter more calories, two and a half times the fat, half the fiber and twice the sugar. They also cost more,” he…
The American Heart Association (AHA) has issued an advisory concluding that replacing saturated fats with unsaturated fats will lower the incidence of cardiovascular disease (CVD), especially if combined with an “overall healthful dietary pattern." Frank M. Sacks, et al, "Dietary Fats and Cardiovascular Disease: A Presidential Advisory From the American Heart Association," Circulation, June 15, 2017. AHA reviewed multiple studies on the effects of dietary saturated fat intake and its replacement with other types of fats, as well as replacement with carbohydrates, and concluded that replacing saturated fat with polyunsaturated vegetable fat and changing dietary patterns reduces the risk of CVD by as much as 30 percent. Key recommendations of the review include lowering intake of saturated fat, increasing intake of polyunsaturated fat and avoiding coconut oil, which more than 70 percent of Americans regard as “healthy,” despite that it actually increases LDL cholesterol. Issue 640
The American Heart Association (AHA) has issued an advisory concluding that replacing saturated fats with unsaturated fats will lower the incidence of cardiovascular disease (CVD), especially if combined with an “overall healthful dietary pattern." Frank M. Sacks, et al, "Dietary Fats and Cardiovascular Disease: A Presidential Advisory From the American Heart Association," Circulation, June 15, 2017. AHA reviewed multiple studies on the effects of dietary saturated fat intake and its replacement with other types of fats, as well as replacement with carbohydrates, and concluded that replacing saturated fat with polyunsaturated vegetable fat and changing dietary patterns reduces the risk of CVD by as much as 30 percent. Key recommendations of the review include lowering intake of saturated fat, increasing intake of polyunsaturated fat and avoiding coconut oil, which more than 70 percent of Americans regard as “healthy,” despite that it actually increases LDL cholesterol. Issue 639
The World Health Organization (WHO) has issued a November 4, 2016, report titled "Tackling food marketing to children in a digital world: trans-disciplinary perspectives," which urges policymakers “to reduce children’s exposure to all forms of marketing for foods high in fats, salt and sugars [HFSS], including via digital media.” In particular, the report claims digital marketing campaigns take advantage of regulatory loopholes to amplify the traditional media advertising of HFSS foods, “achieving greater ad attention and recall, greater brand awareness and more positive brand attitudes, greater intent to purchase and higher product sales.” The report calls attention to the privacy issues that purportedly surround the digital marketing of foods to children, including the collection and use of geo-location and personal data. It also warns that “some food chains partner with gaming companies in order to, for example, make the chain’s restaurants important game locations,” while other advertisers reportedly rely on advergames, social…
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has opened a docket and released industry guidance on the use of the term “healthy” in the labeling of human food products. Responding to Kind LLC’s citizen petition asking the agency to align its nutrient content claim regulations with federal dietary guidance, FDA invites “public comment on the term ‘healthy’, generally, and as a nutrient content claim in the context of food labeling.” Current regulations reportedly establish “the parameters for use of the implied nutrient content claim ‘healthy’ or related terms… on the label or in labeling of a food to suggest that a food, because of its nutrient content, may be useful in creating a diet that is consistent with dietary recommendations, if the food meets certain nutrient conditions, and the claim is made with an explicit or implicit claim or statement about a nutrient.” Among other things, the conditions take into…
Researchers with the University of California, San Francisco, including its Center for Tobacco Control Research and Education, published a September 12, 2016, JAMA article claiming that studies funded by the Sugar Research Foundation (SRF) “singled out fat and cholesterol as the dietary causes of CHD [coronary heart disease] and downplayed evidence that sucrose consumption was also a risk factor.” Titled “Sugar Industry and Coronary Heart Disease Research: A Historical Analysis of Internal Industry Documents,” the special communication analyzes correspondence, internal documents, historical reports, and other statements obtained from SRF and its scientific advisors. The article authors allege that SRF initiated its own CHD research in 1962, after preliminary studies suggested that a low-fat diet high in sugar raises serum cholesterol levels. To this end, the SRF purportedly funded a New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) literature review “arguing that epidemiologic, animal, and mechanistic studies associating sucrose with CHD were limited, implying…
A meta-analysis examining the effect of dairy fats on health has identified “a small positive association between butter consumption and all-cause mortality, no significant association with incident CVD [cardiovascular disease] or CVD subtypes, and a modest inverse association with type 2 diabetes.” Laura Pimpin, et al., “Is Butter Back? A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Butter Consumption and Risk of Cardiovascular Disease, Diabetes, and Total Mortality,” PLoS One, June 2016. Relying on data from nine studies that included 636,151 unique participants with 6.5 million person-years of follow-up, researchers reported that “each daily serving of butter (14g/d) was associated with a 1% higher risk of death” from all causes. The pooled data, however, also showed that each 14-gram serving of butter per day was associated with a 4-percent lower incidence of type 2 diabetes, while the studies found no association between butter consumption and stroke, coronary heart disease or total CVD.…
The European Food Safety Authority’s (EFSA’s) Panel on Contaminants in the Food Chain (CONTAM) has issued a scientific opinion assessing the human health risks of free and esterified 3- and 2-monochloropropane-1, 2-diol (MCPD) and glycidyl esters (GE) in food. According to CONTAM, which considered 7,175 occurrence data, “esters of 3- and 2-MCPD and glycidyl esters were found at the highest levels in palm oil/fat, but most vegetable oil/fats contain substantial quantities.” The panel warned that these substances—which form when refining vegetable oils at high temperatures—pose potential health concerns “for average consumers of these foods in all young age groups, and for high consumers in all age groups.” “There is sufficient evidence that glycidol is genotoxic and carcinogenic, therefore the CONTAM Panel did not set a safe level for GE,” said CONTAM Chair Helles Knutsen in a May 3, 2016, press release. “The exposure to GE of babies consuming solely infant…
