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In a worrying development, the super foods term is being considered by Food Standards Australia for health claims.

Currently the code by Foods Standards Australia and New Zealand only allows for the Health claims of folate that the consumption of folate before and during pregnancy can help reduce the prevalence of spina bifida in babies.

While there is very clear evidence of the link between the consumption of folate and neural tube defects such as spina bifida, opening the flood gates to generic terminology which is not scientifically based is misleading consumers.

The idea behind the current food code is of providing an educational basis and to increase awareness.

Super Foods is a marketing term coined to increase the attractiveness of certain foods to drive sales.

I would be surprised in scientific circles if they use the term “Super” to describe reaction or result of the introduction of a chemicals, treatments or minerals to reduce or treat cancer.

Take the Heart Foundations Healthy Tick endorsement, which is really just another marketing tool in the arsenal of big corporations in the commoditising of our food supply.

I ask the question whether it is appropriate that McDonalds can have a Heart Foundation tick along side productions that have high levels of salt and fat.

Take dark chocolate for example which has high levels of anti-oxidants, if this a Superfood?, should we go out and eat a kilo of chocolate everyday as anti-oxidants have health benefits for your heart.

You only have to look at how food companies are currently misleading the consumer to see that introducing generic nondescript terminology will lead to the consumer being ill informed and mislead.

There will be a barrage of products with claims saying by eating product X that contains a known super food, you will reduce your risk of Diabetes and cardiovascular disease.

A more responsible approach is to educate the public about healthy eating rather than marketing food to solve the problems of a person having a poor diet.

It’s like telling someone to solve there clothes feeling too tight by adding another notch in their belt.

A Fitmate while undergoing a routine procedure to remove a mole which she was concerned about, went to a dermatologist to see whether the offending mole requirred removal.

Well the clinic was very swanky with plush fittings that had a huge interior decorator budget.

No sooner was Katie R sitting in the chair that the dermatologist suggested she get some Botox under the eyes, Katies response was that she only wanted to get a mole checked out.

Apart from being very funny, it does raise a serious point about the perception or expectation that is placed upon the public, especially woman about their appearance.

With womans magazines having barely pubusent girls with adolescent figure and photoshoped images, it is a bit concerning that suggesting a course of Botox is acceptable.

Look at a recent Miss World finalist that is arguably in an unhealthy weight range, is this sending out a positive message about a women being happy with their own body image?

Even girls under 18 years old are getting botox injections, mmmmm, 18 years old, really, this is very worrying.

What happened to growing old gracefully and looking after yourself so you dont look 80 years old when your 40. (BTW K isn’t 40 or looks 80 years old).

With the cosmetics being a billion dollar industry, there is a lot at stake when trying to drive ongoing sales. This leads to misleading product packaging that makes claims based on there own internal clinical trials and non scientific terminology to describe the benefits.

As part of this industry the botox market has exploded and with more and more woman being subjected to mass media campaigns, the glamourising of movie stars and magazines showing manipulated images of models, there is increasing pressure to surcome to the hype generated.

When you look at the the amount of sugar in the so called “Health bars’ are they healthy or really just confectionery marketed to look like a healthier alternative to chocolate bars?

From this selection of snack bars that are marketed to give the appearance of being healthy, are they really that much better than confectionery.

Is the packaging misleading consumers?

If you look at a lot of confectionery bars such as a 55gm Cadbury Cherry Ripe, it contains 27.9gms of sugar or just on 50% so lets compare this with the Nice & Natural, Carmans and Uncle Toby bars.

You will see from Nice and Natural that they contain 25.7% sugar while Carman’s contains 19.9% sugar.

So from Uncle Tobys there is also a high level of sugar at 28.2% which gets buried by showing the amount of sugar per serving size.

This gives a misleading indication and many people will rely on the the information on the front of the packaging that says “Total Sugars 8.8g DI 10%”

Don’t forget the high saturated fat content as well at 7.4%, 1.6% (good) or 9.4% respectively.

This leads to whether a product that contains 20-30% sugar is really not that far behind a chocolate confectionery bar at 50% sugar. Like any product that is high in energy or sugar, it should be consumed in moderation however these bars are often given to kids in there daily lunch boxes as the appearance of a healthy box ticks all the boxes.
Unfortunately with the childhood obesity issue, should these types of products be given to kids.

For a product to be appealing to kids or adults for that matter, it needs to have lots of sugar, salt or fats, so all 3 products score high in the sugar rating while only Carman’s has a low level of Saturated fat while Nice & Natural and Uncle Toby’s are at unacceptable levels (7.4% & 9.4% respectively) if these bars are construed as being healthy.

The most disturbing fact is the omission of “trans fats” that are the really nasty fats, or known as Hydronised vegetable oil, it’s intersting that Carman’s is the only bar that includes this at 0% while Uncle Toby’s and Nice & Natural have no listings.

Given that the later 2 products contain vegetable oi or vegetable fat, and the processes involved in the manufacturing process involves lots of heat, there is a good chance that these products would contain “trans fats”

So I’II let you decide whether you think these health bars are just confectionery?

Have you ever looked at food packaging and wondered what the word “fresh” really means?
According to the Australian Macquarie Dictionary, the word fresh means: newly made or obtained etc, not canned or frozen, not preserved by pickling, salting drying, etc

So when you see Orange juice called “Australian Fresh” or Olives in oil called “Always fresh”, is this a subtle way of getting the word “fresh” onto the packaging by having the word in the company name but not in the products description?

The Australian Fresh Orange juice has a used by date of 4th September 2010 (Used by 02 SEP 10L L3 18:43 on packaging), as I purchased the juice last night, the 17th so allowing for the manufacturing and distribution cycle of perhaps 2 days, and assuming the product was delivered yesterday, is a 20 day old product still considered fresh?

Foods Standards Australia and New Zealand doesn’t have guidelines in regards to food labeling, this is handled by the various state bodies. In Victoria this covered by Human Services under their Food Safety and Regulatory Activities Unit.

Ultimately it comes down to what a court deems the health claim or term to be true, funny enough it comes down to the definition in the Macquarie Dictionary and what a lay person would consider to be true.

A lot of orange juice that is blended from local and imported oranges or even reconstituted juice uses aseptic juice.

So what is aseptic juice anyway, well when the oranges are originally squeezed the juice is heated to kill any bacteria and then kept in cool rooms for anywhere up to 2 years.

Does this sound fresh to you??? As soon as you heat or expose the juice to UV light or oxygen it starts to deteriorate and lose all the nutrients. So the end result is that all that vitamin C needs to be replenished by adding “Vitamin C”. With the “Australian Fresh” Orange juice, vitamin C is added.

Aseptic processing removes most of the nutrients found in orange juice, reduces the taste of the juice and changes its colour.
The other part of the equation is the bulk buying of oranges from local growers when the price is the most attractive and processing the juice for consumption throughout the year.
I’ve never seen on the packaging, oranges have been squeezed on the 8/8/10.

When you buy bread, it usually says “Baked on the xx/xx/xx. I would like to see on the packaging “Oranges squeezed on 10/08/10″

Imagine if you went to a baker and you asked “is the bread fresh” and they said “yes, it was baked 2 days ago” or if you went to a takeaway that had pasta in a bain marie and the response was it was cooked 2 days ago, would you accept this as being fresh?

The other process is “reconstitition” whereby the water is original removed by evaporation from the juice for transportation or storage purposes and reconstituted by adding water back to the concentrate. This process doesn’t sound like the juice would be very fresh?

Getting back to the “Always fresh” “Deli Style Kalamata Olives” would you consider a product that has vegetable oil, salt and preservatives a fresh product? Although “Always Fresh” doesn’t necessarily imply it is fresh, it does confuse consumers when trying to make a decision when looking at a multitude of products.

The government is exploring the possibility of making it mandatory that all fast food outlets include the amount of calories on their products.

With no immediate solution to Australia’s obesity problem, a range of measures need to be introduced. With Australia’s fast food consumption increasing by 109% from 1999 – 2009, there needs to be more education and information regarding what people are eating.

Even as we speak McDonalds are advertising their “Family Dinner Box”, but walk into McDonalds and try and get some nutritional info, mission impossible.

The City of Melbourne have taking leadership with regards to food vendors in Melbourne’s QV food court who can voluntarily adopt there Traffic light system of food labeling with Red, Amber and green denoting what is good, ok and to not so great.

The traffic light system was also introduced as part of the tender process for the new Royal Children’s Hospital.

By having these labeling panels or nutritional information available, people can make more informed decisions about what they consume.