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Well I have seen it all now that Coca Cola have introduced vitamins into their Diet Coke.

I often wonder what are those secret ingredients in Coca cola. One of the by products from the production process has been alleged to be Cadium, a carcinogenic chemical that has caused problems near their plants in the US & India.
Not to mention the ingredient Saccharin which is believed to be carcinogenic.

So seeing that the base product of Diet Coke isn’t the world healthiest, why bother adding vitamins, very strange in deed.

Maybe we can convince the coffee growers to infuse the beans with vitamins as well:)))

Today GlaxoSmithKline, the makers of Ribena have been found by the Commerce Commission to contain very little trace of Vitamin C, not the 7mg of vitamin C per 100ml, or 44 per cent of the recommended daily intake.

This all came about after 2 High School Students tested Ribena to dettermine whether the claims that it contains 4 times the vitamin C content of oranges were true.

But what does this all mean?
Ok they are ordered to run corrective advertising, place information on there website and get fined $NZ217,000 for 15 breaches of the Fair Trading Act.

Judge said comments regarding the Vitamin C claims as “not just incorrect, but wholly false”.

So it begs the question, how many products are not only misrepresenting there nutritional information but are actively misleading the public?

Is it acceptable for a company that turns over 10s of Biilions of dollars manufacturing 100s of different products to merely say “We sincerely regret any confusion to customers who feel they may have been misled.”

Geez you have blantantly mislead the public, I dont think there is any confusion about claiming a product has 4 times the vitamin C of oranges when there are very small tracers of it.:(
They stop short of blaming the consumer for not accepting misleading claims.

Last week GlaxoSmithKline, the makers of Ribena made an ommision to the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission about the Vitamin C content of their products.

The ACCC was specifically concerned that the following representations may have misled consumers:

Representations on the nutrition information panel of Ribena Ready to Drink fruit drinks that claimed the products contained certain quantities of Vitamin C, when in fact they had significantly less Vitamin C, and
advertising and packaging representations of Ribena fruit drinks that: “the blackcurrants in Ribena contain four times the Vitamin C of oranges” implied that Ribena fruit drinks contained four times the Vitamin C of comparable orange juice products, when this was not correct.

The implication is not only touching on the issues I raised in an earlier blog but having having a Nutritional panel that does not reflect the true nutritional breakdown further destroys consumer confidence.

This makes it difficult for consumers who rely on this information to make an appropriate decision.

Another important issue raised is substantiating claims, if Ribena contains more Vitamin C than orange juice products, then the documented level of Vitamin C in orange juice must also be sighted.
However this can get complicated as the Vitamin C content of freshly squeezed juice detteriorates quickly. So a comparision must be made to freshly squeezed orange juice, not just using the term orange juice.
Orange juice technically could be the pasturised version that is imported with low levels of Vitamin C.
Secondly what is the recommended daily requirement for orange juice and how much do we consume before we exceed this amount?
With Ribena there is the issue of the high sugar content and the effect on childhood obesity but this is for another discussion:)

More and more food products are starting to resemble multi vitamins disguised as food.
“with added vitamin A, B, C” etc and the extravagant claims and terminology “Low fat, Fresh” “Rich in Omega 3-protects against heart disease” but what does it all mean.

According to Food Standards Australia, the only health claim that is allowable relates to Folate.
“The benefits of folate to help prevent neural tube defects such as spina bifida”.
So an allowable example is “A diet rich in folate before and in early pregnancy may he p to prevent birth defects like spina bifida in the baby. This food contains 25%of the recommended intake of folate for women of childbearing age”
Any other health claims are in breach of Food Standards Australia.

So when we see “low fat” “low fat” “salt reduced” etc are we getting the sort of information to educate us about making an informed decision?
When a claim of low fat is made, exactly what is the benchmark, or what is the low fat level relative to or more specifically the average level of fat for that product.

Food has just become another marketable commodity with different terminology falling within the marketing arena rather than giving neutral health information.

If I am buying a juice that has the word “fresh” on the packaging yet it is derived from a mixture of local and imported juice that is pasturised and sent over from South America in a 44 gallon drum, is the word fresh a true representation of the contents?