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Costco Chicken Lawsuit Raises Questions About Misleading Food Labels, What Grocery Shoppers Can Trust
Costco’s famous rotisserie chickens were labeled “preservative-free,” but a California class-action lawsuit claims they contain sodium phosphate and carrageenan. The retailer has since removed the labeling. The controversy has raised broader questions about food labels and whether shoppers can trust the buzzwords plastered across grocery store shelves.
“I just noticed that I can’t pronounce anything in the actual ingredients anymore,” said Brett Ward, a Type 2 diabetic who tries to shop consciously. “I try to be conscious of what’s healthy to eat, but it’s hard to find things that are affordable, that are healthy.”
Aaron Gross, director of the University of San Diego’s Center for Food Systems Transformation, said the problem is systemic.
“We’ve got a labeling crisis,” Gross said. “You can’t assume a label means what it means.” Gross, whose work has informed legal challenges to antibiotic labeling claims by major retailers including Whole Foods, said the U.S. Department of Agriculture faces a fundamental conflict.
FDA Approves Natural Food Dye Beetroot Red, Expands the Use of Spirulina
As part of the “Make America Healthy Again” movement’s efforts to replace artificial, petroleum-based food dyes with natural ones, the US Food and Drug Administration says it has approved the use of beetroot red and expanded the use of spirulina extract.
The number of natural colors approved during the current administration is now six, the agency said Thursday.
Beetroot red is a reddish-purple liquid or powder. Spirulina extract — a blue-green powder or liquid from the algae plant Arthrospira platensis, which is found in oceans and salty lakes — is already approved for use in many food and beverage products. They include candy, chewing gum, frosting, some dairy products, cereals, condiments and both alcoholic and nonalcoholic beverages.
The latest FDA action allows the ingredient to be used in other human foods more generally, except for infant formula and certain foods subject to inspection by the US Department of Agriculture.
Ultra-Processed Foods Should Be Treated More Like Cigarettes Than Food — Study
Ultra-processed foods (UPFs) have more in common with cigarettes than with fruit or vegetables, and require far tighter regulation, according to a new report. UPFs and cigarettes are engineered to encourage addiction and consumption, researchers from three US universities said, pointing to the parallels in widespread health harms that link both.
UPFs, which are widely available worldwide, are food products that have been industrially manufactured, often using emulsifiers or artificial colouring and flavours. The category includes soft drinks and packaged snacks such as crisps and biscuits. There are similarities in the production processes of UPFs and cigarettes, and in manufacturers’ efforts to optimise the “doses” of products and how quickly they act on reward pathways in the body, according to the paper from researchers at Harvard, the University of Michigan and Duke University.
They draw on data from the fields of addiction science, nutrition and public health history to make their comparisons, published on 3 February in the healthcare journal the Milbank Quarterly.
FDA Takes New Approach to ‘No Artificial Colors’ Claims
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services reported:
Today, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration took additional steps to support the transition of our nation’s food supply from the use of artificial petroleum-based colors to alternatives derived from natural sources. Companies will now have flexibility to claim products contain ‘no artificial colors’ when the products do not contain petroleum-based colors.
In the past, companies were generally only able to make such claims when their products had no added color whatsoever — whether derived from natural sources or otherwise. The agency sent a letter to industry providing notice of the FDA’s intent to exercise enforcement discretion related to these voluntary labeling claims.
“This is real progress,” said Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. “We are making it easier for companies to move away from petroleum-based synthetic colors and adopt safer, naturally derived alternatives. This momentum advances our broader effort to help Americans eat real food and Make America Healthy Again.”
How the New Dietary Guidelines Could Impact School Meals
Putting together a school meal isn’t easy. “It is a puzzle essentially,” said Lori Nelson of the Chef Ann Foundation, a nonprofit that promotes scratch cooking in schools. “When you think about the guidelines, there’s so many different pieces that you have to meet. You have to meet calorie minimums and maximums for the day and for the week. You have to meet vegetable subgroup categories.”
Districts that receive federal funding for school meals — through, for example, the National School Lunch Program — must follow rules set by the Department of Agriculture (USDA). And those rules may be changing soon. In early January, the Department of Health and Human Services and the USDA unveiled new Dietary Guidelines for Americans, along with a new food pyramid.
The USDA sets school nutrition standards based on those dietary guidelines, which now place an emphasis on protein and encourage Americans to consume full-fat dairy products and limit highly processed foods. Highly processed and ready-to-eat foods often contain added sugars and salt. Think mac and cheese, pizza, french fries and individually packaged peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. These foods are also a big part of many school meals, said Nelson. That’s because schools often lack adequate kitchen infrastructure to prepare meals from scratch.
