The Deception of Food Labels

Did you know that there are many loop holes within the food labeling laws that can allow you to eat foods that you do not think you are eating?

Foods can actually say FAT FREE and still have FAT. Foods can say sugar free and still have SUGAR.

Why and how can the food companies get away with this? It is quite simple actually. In order for a food label to say "fat free" it has to contain less than .5 grams of fat per serving. The same goes for sugar, as long as it has less than .5 grams of sugar per serving it can be labeled "sugar free".

Unfortunately, some fat-free labeled foods may be 50%, 70%, or even 100% fat and they say "fat-free" on the label!

If you look at the laws of both requirements of fat and sugar free labeled products you will see something in common. What you see is that they each have to have less than .5 grams per serving. At first sight that seems great, if we look a little deeper we will see it is an illusion.

The way these food companies get away with this is that there is no law stating how large or small a serving size needs to be. So they adjust there serving sizes so they fit within the laws to label "fat free" or "sugar free".

The bad part is that their "serving size" is not even close to what we actually use in real life.

Let's take the common cooking sprays for example. They claim to be fat free.

However you have to realize that every food has two labels on it. You have the marketing label which is on the front and will boldly state "fat free". Then you have the real label on the back where the ingredients are listed, this is the only label that counts.

If you take that can of cooking spray that claims on the front to be fat free and turn it around, you will be in shock to see what it states in the ingredients. Also note that ingredients are listed by potency, the higher percentage ingredients are listed first.

So, when you look at the so called "fat free" can of cooking spray you will notice the first ingredient to be canola oil or some other type of oil. Hold on, I'm confused, I thought oil was fat and this product is supposed to be fat free; are you following me?

Next let's look at the serving size. It says 1/3 of a second spray. O.K. so 1/3 of a second spray must yield less than .5 grams of fat in order for the company to be able to label it as "fat free". I don't know about you, but I never used a cooking spray for a 1/3 of a second.

So that cooking spray you thought was fat free, depending on how long you spray it, may yield 5 grams of fat.