Finally An Intelligent Move: RIP Smart Choices
After creating quite a stir in the foodie blogosphere, the mainstream media, and even riling up the lethargic FDA, the industry led Smart Choices label is voluntarily suspending the promotion of its program. They even had the Attorney General of Connecticut after them–Attorney General Richard Blumenthal announced that he was investigating the program and some of the companies that participate in it to see if they had violated a consumer protection law that bars deceptive marketing claims.
The FDA had sent a letter to several major food companies saying that they would be looking into whether not certain food labels and logos mislead consumers about the health benefits of certain items, and cracking down on inaccurate food labeling. The FDA did not name names or give a time line of enforcement. However, Dr. Margaret A. Hamburg, the F.D.A. commissioner, has expressed the administration’s interest in standardizing and streamlining front-of-package labels.
”There’s a growing proliferation of forms and symbols, check marks, numerical ratings, stars, heart icons and the like,” said Hamburg. ”There’s truly a cacophony of approaches, not unlike the tower of Babel.”
She says Americans need a label they can trust to inform them about building better diets. The FDA’s letter may not have named specific the offending, trust-crushing products, but Dr. Hamburg wasn’t afraid to comment on the loose standards of a certain egregious labeling campaign, noting that ‘there are products that have gotten the Smart Choices check mark that are almost 50 percent sugar”. In a phone interview with reporters, she repeatedly reference the UK traffic light system as a guide for present label guideline efforts.
In making their own labels, the industry was obviously trying avoid regulation that would make them use a structure so bluntly honest as the UK’s traffic light system: These things are bad for you; This is how much of the bad stuff this item has in it. Smart Choices attempted to avert this by only touting only the good in a food–mostly in the form of added vitamins, minerals, and fiber. Thanks to its very lax standards on other nutritional information, like calorie and fat content, nobody trusted the Smart choices campaign.
Putting “Smart Choices” on things like Froot Loops and mayonnaise (yes, mayonnaise) may have immediately corrupted its image of doing good for the consumer, but it did help intensify the FDA’s efforts to rework its own guidelines. Because “helping consumers make better, healthier choices for themselves is a critical part of the FDA’s public health mission,” the agency said in a statement Friday. “Consumers want and have a right to clear, accessible nutrition information that they can trust to help guide their food choices.” Officials said that by early next year, the FDA will issue proposed standards that companies must follow in creating nutrition labels that go on the front of food packaging. New, exciting “science- and nutrition-based” food labels could be seen on packages at the end of next year!
Still, Mike Hughes, the program’s chairman, said in a statement that they continue to “believe in the science behind the Smart Choices program”. Adding that the “impetus for the Smart Choices program was that there were and are too many systems,” he said. “We applaud the concept of having one system nationwide.”
Yes, the reason the industry added another labeling system was because there were too many systems. Of course. It makes perfect sense. You know what actually makes sense? Ending the stupid, Smart “Froot Loops are better than a donut” Choices program.
October 26, 2009
Tags: blogs, change, education, FDA, Health, heroes, nutrition, policy Posted in: Health, Politics, Science & Technology
3 Responses
I just read about this issue on another blog; I really hope this becomes a step in the right direction and not another way of confusing consumers…
Ugh, food labels like this make me so angry. When so much of food-science is flawed, having labels that act as though the health benefits are “supported by science” just capitalizes on the fact that most people don’t have the time to really follow up on what that science was in the first place. Because I’m sorry – eating honey nut cheerios will NOT prevent heart disease!
Great post. I admit I was somewhat appalled by this program at first, particularly when I was seeing cereals like cocoa puffs with the smart choice stamp making kids think that kind of item is actually healthy!
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