Five or so years ago when the FDA decided that food labels needed to list the amount of trans fat in the product, I was working at Target on their private label business.  Like many other companies at the time, Target made the decision to remove trans fat from as many of their private label products as they could.  In light of the negativity around this nutrient, manufacturers wanted to have a “0 grams” in that spot on the label if at all possible. 

Fast forward to today.  Yes, literally today.  This morning, in fact.  As you know, NuVal LLC, the company I work for scores products on a scale of 1-100, the higher the score, the better the nutrition.  As part of the work we do, we keep a record of all the nutrition information and ingredient lists on tens of thousands of products.  I was running some reports against that data this morning, and “for fun” ran a report to see how many products have trans fat in them.

Of the almost 73,000 products in our database (including national and private label brands):

• More than 2,500 have 0.5 grams or more trans fat listed in the Nutrition Facts Panel
• Nearly 9,000 items have a “partially hydrogenated” oil in the ingredient declaration

Why the difference?  The FDA regulations indicate that if there is 0.49 grams of trans fat or less in a product, it is declared as “0” in the Nutrition Facts Panel.  So these other 6,500 products have low levels of trans fat in them, not enough to get counted on the nutrition panel.

The next logical question is whether it matters?  It does, if you consider that the recommended level of consumption for trans fat is as close to zero as possible in light of this nutrient’s negative impact on the risk of heart and other diseases.

I was actually surprised at the number of products that still have trans fat in them.  Almost 9,000.  Wow.  In looking at the food categories, these low levels of trans fat can be found in frozen pizzas, trail mixes, muffins, rice-type side dishes, microwave popcorn, candy, ice creams, crackers, cookies, drink mixes, and appetizers, to name a few. 

The take-home message?  While you don’t hear much about trans fat these days (the media has moved on to sweeteners and back to sodium as the evil nutrients), it’s still out there in foods you find on your grocery store shelf.

Visit www.nuval.com to use a system which guides you away from foods with trans fat and takes the presence of any trans fat into account when calculating a score—even if it is only on the ingredient list and not on the Nutrition Facts Panel.

In general, I try not to annoy people.  I try to be rational.  But there’s a nutrition issue that continues to circulate that is driving me crazy:  low calorie sweeteners.  It’s a polarizing nutrition topic, a love ‘em or hate ‘em kind of deal. So today, I wanted to try and set the record straight, and by “straight,” I mean from the standpoint of evidence-based science and government regulation, the basis we have to use for these types of issues.  I understand this may make some of you react strongly.  Feel free, but I ask that you do it in a way that is based on science.

Point #1

High-intensity or artificial sweeteners are approved for use by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).  I was surprised to read a statistic from the IFIC Foundation’s 2010 Food & Healthy Survey indicating that only 24% of Americans believe low-calorie sweeteners are reviewed by the federal government, meaning 76% believe they are not reviewed or approved by the FDA.  The job of the FDA is to protect the consumer, and the process to get new ingredients approved can be daunting as safety for consumer consumption must be shown.  There are currently six low-calorie sweeteners approved by the FDA or considered Generally Recognized as Safe (GRAS) for use in food and beverages:  aspartame, acesulfame-potassium (Ace-K), neotame, saccharin, sucralose and high-purity stevia sweeteners.  They’re approved.  They’ve been tested and have passed all the hurdles required.

Point #2

The BIGGEST PUBLIC HEALTH ISSUE IN OUR COUNTRY TODAY IS OBESITY. Yes, I get that I’m yelling.  We all see the statistics on the number of people in our country that are overweight, we hear the numbers of kids who have obesity-related diseases.  But we ignore the numbers, assign them to someone else, pretending like it isn’t happening in our neighborhoods, at our offices, in our kids’ schools.  Low-calorie sweeteners do what their name says – they lower the calories in food.  So if a person who is seeking to lose or manage weight replaces a regular sugar product with an artificially sweetened one, they are cutting out calories.  This is a good thing in a country with our rates of obesity as long as it leads to overall reductions in calories and is combined with exercise.

Point #3

As a parent and a dietitian, I do look at things different with kids.  Despite the fact that I start my day with a Diet Mountain Dew, I don’t, in general, give my child artificially sweetened products.  But it’s not because I’m concerned about their safety or the fact that they are not “all natural.”  I want him to focus on nutrient-dense foods that contribute all the nutrients he needs and avoid empty-calorie foods except as a treat.  I want to teach him to eat when he’s hungry and stop when he’s full, building habits where he understands portion control and listening to his own body and it’s hunger cues.  But giving kids sugar-sweetened beverages in an effort to avoid artificial sweeteners isn’t the right answer, which is some of what I see happening out there.

The beauty of an expansive food supply is that we can all choose what to include in our eating habits.  I’m fine with that, fine with the idea that some people simply don’t want to use low-calorie sweeteners.  What I struggle with is those who spread false information about these ingredients.

Visit www.nuval.com, where foods with lower energy density (calories per gram) score higher in general in light of the obesity epidemic in our country.

The potato and the tomato.  They are definitely the two most talked about vegetables in the federally-funded school lunch program.  Right now, the potato is the one being hotly debated.

The USDA proposed changes to the school lunch guidelines which would limit servings of starchy vegetables (white potatoes, corn, green peas, lima beans) to one cup per week. According to a 2007 USDA study, 75% of the vegetables kids eat at school are these starchy ones, with French fries being the top choice.  The concern by the administration and USDA is that this is contributing to the extremely high rates of childhood obesity as estimates suggest that kids are getting about 40% of their total calories from school each day.

On the opposing side of this great potato debate is the potato industry.  Their point-of-view is that at about five cents per serving, potatoes are a cost-effective way to get potassium and fiber in kids as well as help schools meet the calorie requirements of school lunch.  Their efforts have gone so far that the Senate actually blocked the USDA’s ability to limit the servings of potatoes and other starchy vegetables at lunch.  There’s also a website that has cropped up, called Potatoesinschool.com which is owned by the National Potato Council.  The site touts all the benefits of potatoes and includes a consumer lobbying campaign to keep potatoes in school.

In the regulatory arena, it’s often important to consider the spirit of the law vs. the letter of the law.  This is one of those examples.  The letter of the proposed law says limit starchy vegetables in the school lunch program.  The spirit of the law says we need to increase the variety of vegetables kids actually eat (which is different than what gets offered), and limiting the servings of potatoes will help do this.  The spirit of the law also addresses the issue that it isn’t the humble potato itself that is the issue, but more often it’s what comes attached to the potato – sodium, fat, sugar (ketchup is often used as a condiment).

Change can be effective if it happens one step at a time, and considering the daunting cost impacts of trying to improve the overall nutrition value of school lunch, making incremental changes over time might be the right approach.

Visit www.nuval.com to see why a whole potato scores a 93 and smiley-face tator tots score a 29.