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How much integrity is
behind that food label?
The FDA’s Requirements of U.S. Manufacturers
Y
ou’re in your local health food store looking
for a new snack food that you can safely
eat while sticking as close as you can
to your Paleo lifestyle. You work hard to
monitor everything that you put into your
body, so when you decide to buy something in a
package, you carefully read all those labels to ensure
you’ve found something you can eat when you’re on
the go, without compromising your health.
Because you’re concerned about eating an organic
diet, you scan the packages for the word organic on
the label. If you can’t find anything organic, you find
something that promises to be “all natural,” you flip it
over to check the nutritional label, looking at its sugar
and calorie content.
If it all adds up, you take it to the counter, drop
some cash, and off you go. You leave feeling good
about the choice you just made for your body.
Now, would you believe me if I told you that
the producer of that snack you just bought wasn’t
accountable to any governing body with regards to its
nutritional label?
We are so diligent when it comes to reading
nutritional labels that it has become a part of our
American culture. We put an enormous amount
of emphasis on the nutritional label and we’ve
been trained to read it, but nobody along the way
has mentioned that the FDA doesn’t require a
manufacturer to have the nutritional information of a
product verified or approved by anyone.
For any product on the shelves in the United States,
the producer is 100% accountable for the nutritional
label. People are buying products based on that label.
But is it accurate? That’s anybody’s guess.
Moreover, unless a manufacturer is pursuing a
vegan, gluten-free, organic or Non-GMO certification,
its products don’t have to be submitted to anyone.
Did you know how little involvement the FDA has
at the most basic level of food manufacturing and
product packing?
The FDA is in the
business of policing.
Many consumers believe that if a product is on the
shelves of a store that the FDA must have deemed
it safe, but that is simply not the case. The FDA
only pulls something off of a shelf that has harmed
someone or is making false claims.
There was a story recently in the news about two
6 May 2014 eNewsletter
different brands of diet pills in the U.S. that were
reported to the FDA. Consumers came to the FDA
with complaints of these diet pills not working and
accused these companies of making false claims.
These diet pill manufacturers are standing behind
their claims, and of course they do because they
paid independent companies to tell consumers want
they want to hear. This is where the FDA c