The University of Connecticut Rudd Center for Food Policy & Obesity has issued a report claiming that food companies “disproportionately target their TV advertising for fast food, candy, sugary drink and snack brands to black and Hispanic consumers.” Focusing on restaurant, food and beverage companies that spent at least $100 million on advertising in 2013 as well as participants in the Children’s Food and Beverage Advertising Initiative, the report reviews the number of advertisements for fast food, sugar-sweetened beverages, snack foods, dairy products, 100-percent juice, water, fruits and vegetables that appeared on “Spanish-language TV and black-targeted TV programming.” The authors also used syndicated market research data from Nielsen to compile media spending by brand and product, in addition to estimating “exposure to TV advertising by black, Hispanic, and all children and adolescents in 2013.” In particular, the report notes that 26 companies spent $675 million in food-related advertising on Spanish-language…
Tag Archives sugar
Britain’s Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA) has published a report condemning government policies aimed at reducing the consumption of sugar. “Just as fat seems to have been given an amnesty, so sugar is now in the dock,” according to report co-authors Rob Lyons and Christopher Snowdon. “So what exactly is the evidence that sugar is deadly? Can one substance really be responsible for a plethora of chronic diseases? If so, are the calls for action to reduce sugar consumption – including taxes and regulations – justified?” See IEA News Release, July 15, 2015. Issue 573
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has issued proposed revisions to the required information appearing in food and beverage products’ Nutrition Facts labels. The changes include a required declaration of the percent daily value for added sugars based on the recommendation that daily intake from added sugars not exceed 10 percent of total calories. The proposal would also revise the footnote appearing on the Nutrition Facts label “to help consumers understand the percent daily value concept.” FDA has reopened a 60-day comment period addressing its proposed revisions. “The FDA has a responsibility to give consumers the information they need to make informed dietary decisions for themselves and their families,” Susan Mayne, director of the FDA’s Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition, was quoted as saying in a July 24, 2015, press release. “For the past decade, consumers have been advised to reduce their intake of added sugars, and…
A consumer has filed a putative class action against Kraft Foods Group, Inc. alleging that the company’s Knudsen Hampshire Sour Cream is labeled as containing 60 calories with 3.5 grams of saturated fat per halfcup while the actual content is 240 calories with 14 grams of saturated fat. Appel v. Kraft Foods Grp., Inc., No. BC587662 (Cal. Super. Ct., Los Angeles Cty., filed July 9, 2015). The plaintiff further alleges that the listed sodium content of 10 milligrams and sugar content of one gram is incorrect because the sour cream actually contains 40 milligrams of sodium and four grams of sugar. The complaint does not provide the source of the plaintiff’s quadrupled figures. He alleges that Kraft has violated California consumer-protection statutes and seeks class certification, compensatory and punitive damages, restitution, an injunction, and attorney’s fees. Issue 572
The U.K. Scientific Advisory Committee on Nutrition (SACN) has released its final Carbohydrate and Health report recommending that “free sugars account for no more than 5% of daily energy intake.” Asked by the U.K. Department of Health and the Food Standards Agency to “examine the latest evidence on the links between consumption of carbohydrates, sugars, starch and fiber and a range of health outcomes,” the expert panel commissioned systematic reviews of evidence from prospective cohort studies and randomized controlled trials, in addition to considering comments submitted in response to its first draft report. Based on these findings, the report concludes, among other things, that (i) “high levels of sugar consumption are associated with a greater risk of tooth decay”; (ii) “drinking high-sugar beverages results in weight gain and increases in BMI in teenagers and children”; and (iii) “consuming too many high-sugar beverages increases the risk of developing type 2 diabetes.”…
University of Cambridge researchers report that replacing one soft drink per day with water or unsweetened coffee/tea reduced the incidence of diabetes by 14 to 25 percent in a prospective cohort of 25,639 adults enrolled in the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition. Laura O’Connor, et al., “Prospective associations and population impact of sweet beverage intake and type 2 diabetes, and effects of substitutions with alternative beverages,” Diabetologia, May 2015. Funded by Medical Research Council and Cancer Research UK, the study relied on food diaries completed over 11 years of follow-up, during which time 874 participants developed type 2 diabetes. The findings evidently show a 22-percent increase in diabetes risk per additional daily serving of soft drink, sweetened milk beverage or artificially sweetened beverage (ASB)—although the association with ASB consumption disappeared when researchers accounted for body mass index and waist girth as markers of obesity. As the authors observed in a May…
A study examining the relationship between sugar-sweetened beverage (SSB) consumption and liver health among premenopausal women has reportedly found that habitual, moderate intake “may elicit hepatic lipogenesis.” Maya Shimony, et al., “The relationship between sugar-sweetened beverages and liver enzymes among healthy premenopausal women: a prospective cohort study,” European Journal of Nutrition, March 2015. Relying on data from a prospective cohort of 259 healthy women, researchers with the National Institutes of Health and George Washington University’s Milken Institute School of Public Health measured serum levels of alanine and aspartate aminotransferases (ALT and AST), biomarkers used to assess overall liver health. The study claims that for every additional cup of SSB consumed and every 10-gram increase in added sugar and total fructose per day, “log ALT increased by 0.079 U/L (95 % CI 0.022, 0.137), 0.012 U/L (95 % CI 0.002, 0.022), and 0.031 (0.012, 0.050), respectively, and log AST increased by…
The World Obesity Federation is convening clinicians, researchers and policymakers in Berlin, Germany, for a June 29-30, 2015, conference titled, “Dietary Sugars, Obesity and Metabolic Disease Risk.” Sessions will include those addressing studies allegedly linking dietary sugars to the development of type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease and fatty liver disease; global consumption patterns; and policy solutions. Issue 559
An Illinois federal court has dismissed a lawsuit alleging that Kind misleadingly labeled its Vanilla Blueberry Clusters as having “no refined sugars” despite containing evaporated cane juice (ECJ) and molasses. Ibarrola v. Kind, LLC, No. 12-50377 (N.D. Ill., order entered March 12, 2015). The plaintiff had alleged that ECJ and molasses result from refining sugar cane—albeit less refining than what is required to produce table sugar—and as a result, the label’s claim of “no refined sugar” was fraudulent, breached an express warranty and violated the state’s consumer-protection law. The court found the plaintiff’s claim that she read the entire package, including the ingredients list, before purchasing the product contradicted her claim that she did not understand that the product contained partially refined sugars, noting that courts “have dismissed complaints premised on such logical inconsistencies.” The court also compared what she claimed to believe to what a reasonable consumer would believe upon…
Citing internal cane and beet sugar documents dating back to 1959, an article published in PLOS Medicine claims that the sugar industry made a concerted effort to alter the priorities of the National Institute of Dental Research’s (NIDR’s) 1971 National Caries Program (NCP). Cristin Kearns, Stanton A. Glantz, et al., “Sugar Industry Influence on the Scientific Agenda of the National Institute of Dental Research’s 1971 National Caries Program: A Historical Analysis of Internal Documents,” PLOS Medicine, March 2015. University of California, San Francisco, researchers apparently relied on World Sugar Research Organization documents obtained from the University of Illinois Archives, which housed the correspondence of a university professor who also served on the Sugar Research Foundation and International Sugar Research Foundation Advisory Board. They also acquired documents related to NPC via PubMed and WorldCat, as well as by contacting NIDR directly. “The sugar industry could not deny the role of sucrose in…
