Apparently, these consumers took issue with some (actually, it seems as though it might be almost all) of the claims on the product label.

Without boring everyone (except lawyers) to death with a whole lot of legal detail, here are a few things I learned (or was reminded of) from the court’s preliminary rulings. If you’re a dedicated label-reader as I am, or you’re just interested in serving yourself and your family the best, healthiest, highest-quality food possible, keep these things in mind:

• The court tossed out the claims related to the use of the phrase “Authentic Tradition,” because the judge said that was puffery, which is allowable. In other words, it’s one of those commonly-used advertising phrases that sound good but are basically meaningless. There are plenty of others… “wholesome,” for instance. Ponder that next time somebody claims sugar coated sugar pellets are a “wholesome” part of a nutritious breakfast.

• The judge also said it was okay for the dip to say it was made “with garden vegetables,” because it contained avocado powder, dehydrated onion, garlic powder, and bell pepper, which were things that could be grown in a garden. Gotta keep in mind, being “made with” something isn’t the same as being made entirely (or even mostly) from something. Kinda like when “cheese food products” that are mostly vegetable oil claim they’re made with real dairy.

  You really have to look at the ingredient list. Food producers are required to report the ingredients in order by quantity. So if the label prominently proclaims the product is “made with” something, but you don’t see that item until way down toward the bottom of the list of ingredients, you may want to take all the label claims with the proverbial grain of salt.

  (As an aside: seriously? The judge knows somebody who can grow avocado powder, garlic powder and dehydrated onion in a garden? Maybe they should consider watering more frequently…)

  So, apparently, avocado powder can be a vegetable. Go figure.

• Anyway, the people who brought the lawsuit also had a problem with the dip’s claim it contained zero grams of trans fats. We all know trans fats are bad, right? And if a food product says it has zero grams, that means it doesn’t have any of those nasty trans fats, right? So the judge slapped the food company down hard on this count, right?

  Actually, no, he didn’t.

  Foods can still have some tiny quantities of trans fats and still legally report them as zero grams on the nutrition label. As long as the quantity is less than half a gram, so it would round down to zero, they can say zero grams and still be telling the truth. Same thing for cholesterol. And a lot of other things, for that matter. You have to read the ingredient list, looking for things like partially-hydrogenated oils. If you see these, there’s some trans fat in that food, no matter what the nutrition label says.

• On the other hand, the court said there could be a problem with the defendant’s use of the phrase “all natural,” because the product allegedly contains artificial trans fats.

• Another thing the judge agreed might be misleading and should be decided in a trial: the word guacamole was in a font two sizes larger than the phrase “flavored dip.” This could make somebody who isn’t reading closely think the dip was actually real guacamole, rather than some vaguely-guacamole-flavored dip “food product.” See, it’s kind of like those “juice drinks” that contain almost no juice. You can only call something juice if it’s really made of juice (not just made with juice). And you can only call something guacamole if it’s actually made primarily of avocado.

  In this case, they could only call it “guacamole flavored dip” because it contained only about 2% avocado powder (and no real, unpowdered avocado at all). But the way they presented it on the label, it was possible somebody could see the big word “guacamole” and overlook the “flavored dip” part. Guacamole can be a pretty decent food, nutritionally-speaking. “Guacamole flavored dip,” probably not so much.

So, what can we learned from this?

1. Glancing over the nutrition breakdown isn’t enough. You need to read the ingredient list, too. If the desirable ingredients are way down at the bottom of the list, or you see ingredients you don’t want, you might want to look elsewhere. (Or, better yet, make it yourself from fresh.)

2. It pays to read the label carefully to make sure you’re getting what you think you’re buying, and not some pale imitation. Cheese instead of “cheese flavored food product.” Juice instead of “juice drink.” And, yes, guacamole instead of “guacamole flavored dip.”

3. Some “puffery” is allowed. Don’t let yourself be mislead by nice-sounding but meaningless claims, like “authentic,” “wholesome,” or “home-style.”

Happy shopping, y’all!

— Diane

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The author points out the current campaign to brand HFCS as “natural” is fairly meaningless, because there’s no regulation on use of the word “natural.” Does it mean only products that are sold in exactly the same form as found in nature? If that’s the case, there’s not much natural food in the supermarket, since almost all of it has undergone some kind of human intervention before it reaches the grocery store shelves.

Which then puts you on the slippery slope of trying to define exactly how much and what kind of human intervention is permissible for something to still be “natural” and at what point it slides on over into “processed.”

Don’t Let Yourself Get Sidetracked

Another problem with the whole “natural” thing: it takes attention away from the real issue.

Which is: it really doesn’t matter if HFCS is natural or not, the problem is that it (and sugar in general) is everywhere, lurking in all sorts of foods where you don’t expect it. Ketchup, salad dressing, lunch meats. Even stuff you think is healthy. Stuff you feed your kids.

In the past 40 years or so, we as a nation have gotten fat. The culprit is not so much HFCS, per se, as it is our collective sweet tooth. We’ve gotten so used to loading everything up with sugar (and sugar substitutes), we don’t even know what truly unsweetened tastes like anymore.

Not to mention, this stuff is totally without nutritional value. It’s the very definition of empty calories. If you want sweet, eat a piece of fruit. At least it offers vitamins, minerals and fiber along with the sugar.

Action Steps

And this is where the real value lies in the article. It wraps up with a long list of ways to reduce the sugar (and HFCS, fructose, dextrin, malt, molasses, corn sweetener and all their pals) in your and your kids’ diets.

Here are just a few of her tips:

• Read the ingredients. She provides a comprehensive list of all the aliases under which non-nutritional carbs and calories can masquerade in the ingredient list. Read it, learn it, and limit your exposure to foods with any of these as one of their first three ingredients.

• Reduce the sugar in home-baked goods. She says in most cases you can cut the sugar called-for in the recipe by up to one-third without compromising the taste or texture. This I did not know, but I’m for sure going to be giving it a try!

• Use fruit puree in place of sugar. I’d heard of using applesauce in place of the oil when making a cake to reduce the overall fat content, but frankly I hadn’t thought of using it in place of sugar. D’oh! Imagine me slapping myself on the forehead as in those old V-8 commercials. And it’s not just applesauce — think peaches, berries, pears, etc.

  Just make sure whatever you use is unsweetened, no sugar added, 100% fruit. (Otherwise you’d be undoing the reason for substituting the fruit puree in the first place.) Homemade is really easy to do in either a food processor or blender and it freezes up beautifully, so none of that whining about how you don’t have the time or how it will go bad before you can use it. Whether homemade or store-bought, it increases both flavor and nutrition! Sweet (in more ways than one).

She’s got a whole bunch more suggestions. To read them all, check out this great article!

— Diane

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Late last month, a federal judge basically tossed out the rest of the suit, too.

The plaintiffs had claimed violations of a state law against “deceptive practices,” unjust enrichment, and breach of warranty. Unfortunately for them, they apparently hadn’t done much homework, because the judge found they “provided nothing but conjecture as to the prices they paid for Snapple and the prices of comparable beverages available for sale at the time of their Snapple purchases.”

That meant, according to the court, there was nothing on which to base an award for damages, even if they had been able to prove any damages to start with. Beyond that, in the absence of any hard numbers, they weren’t able to show that Snapple had profited unjustly at their expense. Worse, according to the judge, they didn’t even offer anything to prove they had purchased the beverages in question specifically because of that “All Natural” labeling.

No proof of any financial damages suffered, no proof they relied on the labeling in making their purchases… no case.

Now, you know from what I’ve written before, I’m no fan of HFCS. But the phrase “All Natural” is one of those vague bits of marketing-speak that a wise consumer always takes with the proverbial grain of salt. As far as I know, there’s no hard-and-fast definition of what “natural” exactly means. And, technically, HFCS is made from corn, which (last I checked, at least) is “natural.”

So I can’t necessarily argue with a company that labels a product “All Natural” even though it’s got HFCS in it. It’s a case of caveat emptor… like when you see “Reduced Fat” on a label and you know that means you need to check the sugar/carb content, because all too often they reduce the fat but add extra sugar.

Those labels are essentially meaningless — like when they call a breakfast cereal “wholesome” and carry on about “whole grains,” so Mom can delude herself into thinking her kids are eating something other than a bowl full of sugar for breakfast.

No, my problem with HFCS is not that it’s “unnatural,” but rather that it’s ubiquitous. I mean, just try getting away from it. Read the labels of the products already in your pantry and refrigerator. I suspect you’ll be surprised at how many places you’ll find HFCS lurking. Unexpected places. Places where you’d never expect to find extra sugar.

What you might not know is that HFCS is used as a preservative. It’s one of the things that gives our food such long shelf lives. The vast quantities of unnecessary simple sugar carbohydrates in our diet, the sugars that overstimulate your body’s metabolism and can lead to insulin resistance syndrome (Type 2 diabetes), well, that’s just a bonus.

It’s no wonder there’s an obesity problem in the USA. We’ve been getting stuffed full of hidden sugar since we were kids. We’ve been conditioned into a collective sweet tooth of massive proportions (and many of us have developed bodies of massive proportions as a result).

The corn producers have been running a bunch of those “there’s nothing wrong with HFCS” commercials in which they emphasize how it’s made from corn, and (like all sugars) is “fine in moderation”… while they neatly sidestep the REAL issue: how it’s nearly impossible to consume HFCS “in moderation” because it seems to be lurking in almost every darned prepared food on the grocery store shelves!

Makes it all the more important to read those labels, eh?

— Diane

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For instance, the use of the word “literally.” I just read a blog post in which the author opined that a certain type of lawsuit has “literally exploded over the past several years.” Uhm… I don’t think so.

“Literally exploded” means these lawsuits have actually blown up. As in KABOOM, smoking crater left behind, blood and guts everywhere blown up. I’m pretty sure if legal paperwork all over the country had been literally exploding for several years, I would have heard at least a passing mention of it on the news.

No, I think the author probably meant the number of lawsuits had figuratively exploded. As in, the word “explosion” used as a figure of speech, not indicating an actual, physical explosion.

Then there was the discussion forum where people try to get help for their technology issues. One person reported having trouble getting his MP3 player to “sink” with his computer.

Well, I’m not surprised. If he’d been trying to sync the two devices, he might have had more success. It’s short for “synchronize.” Get it? Synchronize…. sync… See how it works? Sheesh.

That’s what I mean about people not understanding what they’re saying. If the poster know that “sync” is short for “synchronize,” there’s no way he’d have come up with “sink.” At least, I like to think there’s no way.

Others that have bugged me in the past week or so:

• Someone who was “phased” by an unexpected development. (The word they were looking for is fazed. As in “to disturb the composure of : disconcert, daunt.”)
• A person who reported their interest was “peaked” by an interesting fact. (They probably meant to say it was piqued, because, you know, that’s the correct word. It’s French, means “pricked,” in the sense of “stimulated.”)
• An individual who shared with us the revelation that the smell of good food could “wet” his appetite. (True, his mouth may have been watering, but what he meant to say — assuming he cared about correct usage, that is — was whet — as in “sharpen,” what a whetstone will do to a knife.)
• A restaurant that advertised their beef dip sandwich “with piping hot au jus.” (That’s just silly. “Au jus” is French for “with juice.” Would you actually say, “with piping hot with juice”? Then don’t say anything comes “with piping hot au jus.” Just don’t. It’s like advertising the “soup du jour of the day.” Look, if you don’t understand what the words in the foreign language mean, either look them up or don’t use them. Using them wrong doesn’t make you look sophisticated. It just gives people who know better a good giggle at your expense.)

And don’t even get me started on the people who visit web “sights.” They’re web sites, folks — you know, like a job site or a construction site.

Sigh. Sorry about that. I just had to say something or I would have figuratively exploded.

— Diane

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You may remember awhile ago I mentioned we’d joined a produce buying group here in our local area. So far, we’ve loved it! It’s been an adventure trying out new fruits and veggies (some of which we’d never heard of before, others we’d heard of but just never had the guts to purchase on our own).

We’ve also enjoyed visiting our new-ish local small town farmer’s market on Saturdays, and we’ve been fans for years of the huge farmer’s market over in Raleigh.

Well, if you’re interested in finding a farmer’s market in your area, or finding a CSA (community supported agriculture) group, Local Harvest looks to be an excellent resource. :)

One thing I found helpful if you’re looking for a CSA is to use their search right there on the home page. If you go through the site’s catalog, they’ll list all the CSAs that allow you to subscribe online through their catalog — but as I found when doing a search on CSAs in North Carolina, many of them don’t. You’ll find a lot more if you search for all CSAs, not just the ones in their catalog.

By the way, they aren’t just produce… I found several that specialize in things like meat, flowers and nuts & berries.

You can also search for farms that sell to the public, farmer’s markets and grocery stores and co-ops that offer locally-grown foods. And (if you didn’t figure it out from what I was saying above) they’ve got a catalog where you can buy all kinds of interesting and yummy-sounding stuff.

OK, now I’m starting to sound like a commercial, so I’d better stop. Seriously, though, I’m not getting anything for this recommendation — it’s just that we’ve been so happy with our CSA, and I feel so strongly about the benefits of buying local and supporting your local farmers. So, anyway, check it out — and check out the other resources I linked to in this article — to find out what’s available in your area.

If you do decide to try out something, I’d love to know how it works out for you. If you’ve got other resources to help support local agriculture that you’d like to share, please… share, that is! :)

— Diane

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I mean, after all, as they’ve been telling us over and over, it’s natural. Metabolized just like sugar. Perfectly fine in moderation. Right?

Clearly, I’m not the only one concerned. I mean, we all like to think we’re important, but seriously, I don’t think the Corn Refiners Association would start an entire ad campaign just to try to convince li’l ol’ me. And there have been enough products lately trumpeting their lack of HFCS right there on the labels that the CRA has got to be feeling some pressure.

They garnered one victory when they got the FDA to actually declare their artificially-produced product as “natural.” Apparently the reasoning went something like this: there is an artificial enzyme used in the production of HFCS, but because it doesn’t actually end up in the final product — just “passes over” it during the production process — the end result is composed of corn and enzymes that occur in nature, so they can call it “natural.”

You know, as I’ve been known to say, “Dirt is natural, but I’m not sure I want it to be in all my food.”

So what do you do when you’ve been making a fortune manufacturing a product that suddenly lots of people don’t want in their food? What do you do when food manufacturers are publicly touting how their creations do NOT include your product?

Of course! You change your product’s name! That’ll change everybody’s mind!

Seriously. I am totally so not kidding. The Corn Refiners are trying to change the name of High Fructose Corn Syrup to “Corn Sugar.”

Just as prunes morphed into “dried plums,” the Corn Refiners now propose to change the name of HFCS. Apparently, we’re all going to be much happier to find our crackers, breakfast cereals, sauces and dressings, snacks, beverages, baked goods and pretty much everything else we buy crammed full of “corn sugar.”

Hey, at least it won’t be that nasty old HFCS, right?

The problem is, there’s just too much darned sugar (corn, cane, beet or otherwise) in processed food. Food processors have spent decades cultivating our collective sweet tooth to the point many of us don’t even know what “real” food tastes like anymore. Now we’ve got a whole buncha lard-butts running around the countryside, and an epidemic of insulin-resistance syndrome (AKA “type 2 diabetes”) and people are starting to wake up to the fact that maybe all these sweeteners in their food isn’t such a good idea after all.

See, that’s the thing. Changing the name to “corn sugar” isn’t going to help when the problem is too much sugar to start with.

So, no, sorry, Corn Refiners Association. Changing the name of HFCS to “corn sugar” isn’t going to change anything, at least not as far as this cooktop diva is concerned.

I’m still going to cook as much real food as I can for my family instead of relying on over-processed, over-sweetened artificial food products. I’m still going to read the ingredient lists and look for foods with less sugar. I’m still not going to serve my son artificially colored sugar water blessed with a whopping 5% juice so it can be called a “juice drink” in a lame attempt to fool us both into thinking it’s at all healthy.

A skunk by any other name still stinks.

— Diane

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We wanted to get more fresh fruits and veggies into our diet, and it was important to us to support local farmers. We live in a semi-rural area that’s under a lot of development pressure. We like the open spaces, and anything we can do to encourage local farmers to keep on farming instead of selling out to the developers, we want to do.

So when, at a recent weekend farmers’ market in town, we came across flyers for a produce buying co-op, we jumped on it. For those of you in the Triangle area in North Carolina, it’s called The Produce Box. Check ‘em out!

The farmer gets an outlet for his produce. The food is delivered to our door once a week, so we get the benefit of farm-fresh produce without the hassle of growing our own garden or schlepping ourselves down to the farmers’ market every week (although we’ll probably still do that most weeks, anyway). Something like this is great for those who don’t have a lot of garden space (apartment-dwellers, city folk and the like) and those — like us — who for whatever reason can’t grow a garden (in our case, a huge local deer, rabbit and raccoon population, plus no spare time for gardening).

It’s probably a little more expensive than buying produce at the Wal*Mart, but the stuff is fresh, fresh, fresh! Definitely locally grown. And delicious — varieties that have been selected more for taste than for “ease of shipping.” Not to mention how good it makes us feel that we’re supporting our local farmers.

We also figured this was a way of forcing us into more variety in the plant-food portion of our diet. This week, we got strawberries, new potatoes, sweet potatoes, a head of cabbage, asparagus, radishes and garden peas. Yum!

I’ll keep you posted over the summer with our ongoing experiences, maybe share some of the recipes I try.

So, have you ever tried one of these buying groups? What were your experiences? If you’ve never tried one before, would you consider joining one?

— Diane

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Can’t say I’m surprised, really. I know plenty of people (myself included) who have had the experience of exercising like crazy and seeing no weight loss.

On the other hand, Back In The Day when I was working out at The Firm studios down in Columbia, South Carolina, I was rail-thin and annoyingly energetic. I was also in my early 20s, which might explain at least part of that. And the rest could probably be put down to the fact I was working out intensely for an hour every day, six or seven days a week. (Yes, really. I was obsessed.)

That said, I think The Firm is great — they pretty much invented the idea of combining aerobics with weight training in a single workout. I’ve done their workouts recently (they have a whole line of DVDs and all now) and I have to say, while their newer ones are (frankly, IMO) uhm… not so good, the earlier, old-style workouts are still killer.

But I digress. Back to the Time article.

Turns out, when people exercise, they tend to “reward” themselves with a little extra food. Or maybe not-so-little extra, as the case may be. So you burn more calories, but you take in more, as well. And people apparently tend to overestimate how many calories they burned, and underestimate how many additional calories their “reward” is packing on.

It seems the old advice on how to lose weight: eat less, move more is still true, though. It’s just that it seems the “moving more” part doesn’t require an hour a day sweating at the gym. Rather, it can be satisfied through simply getting up off your butt and walking around the neighborhood a bit. Gardening. Cooking dinner instead of ordering takeout. Scrubbing down your own bathrooms instead of having a maid service come in.

As the article says, “Many obesity researchers now believe that very frequent, low-level physical activity — the kind humans did for tens of thousands of years before the leaf blower was invented — may actually work better for us than the occasional bouts of exercise you get as a gym rat.”

So, who wants to join me for a stroll around the neighborhood, maybe help me pull some weeds in the garden? :)

— Diane

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I have to say, pretty much all the suggestions there are confirmed as good ideas by my own observations over years of “semi-pro shopping.” Buy in bulk (i.e. “stock up”) on non-perishables from the warehouse stores, choose wisely which fruits and veggies to buy organic and which to buy “regular”, fuggeddabout things like organic potato chips and cookies (they’re just not that good for you on a regular basis, organic or not, so save your money), shop store brands, join a food co-op, etc. Good ideas, all.

One thing, though, was suggestion #10, which was that you don’t need to buy organic frozen meals. Actually, I agree with that, totally. By the time it’s gone through all the processing it takes to get to the point of a pre-cooked, prepared, frozen meal, I honestly don’t think organic versus non-organic is going to make all that much difference. So spending the extra for a so-called organic frozen meal isn’t probably going to gain you anything in terms of health or nutrition.

Besides, as the author points out, most frozen meals are so loaded with salt, any potential benefit from “organic-ness” is probably going to be pretty much canceled out by the overabundance of sodium.

But I do take issue with the author’s contention that all frozen meals are high in sodium. Personally, I’ve had pretty good luck with the Healthy Choice line of meals. The ones I’ve tried, at least, have been fairly tasty (as these things go) and are relatively low in sodium. They tend to season with herbs and spices rather than loading up on the salt.

Personally, I usually go for their complete meals: meat, starch, veggie and a fruit dessert. They’re only about $2.50 at Wal-Mart, and if I shop the sales I can sometimes (often) get them for less (picked up some from Food Lion this past week for $2.00 each, for instance). For those who want to eat a little lighter or who prefer to add their own side items or dessert, they also have a line of “Natural Entrees” that apparently have no preservatives and no artificial flavors. Not quite organic, exactly, but better than nothing.

Could I make a meal myself that’s lower in sodium? Would it be cheaper for me to make my own? Probably yes on both counts. But with these I get a decent, low-cal, nutritious meal with that makes for a tasty and filling lunch, without having to do any work at all. Costs a whole lot less than going out to eat, it’s probably a lot better for me and it is way more satisfying than a sandwich. And all I have to do is grab one out of the freezer and I’m on my way — no muss, no fuss, no extra prep.

For me, it’s totally worth it. When I have the time to cook extra and package it up so I can take it in to work, I do. It’s just that with everything going on in my life these days, it’s rare I have that kind of time.

Oh, yeah, and I guess I should add that this is totally my own opinion, and I’m not being compensated in any way by the folks at Healthy Choice for saying any of this. It’s basically just Ye Olde Unsolicited Testimonial from a satisfied customer. :)

So I agree totally with the point that you don’t have to buy organic frozen meals… it’s just that I don’t think you need to avoid frozen meals entirely (or feel guilty about eating them), as long as you shop wisely and read the labels before you buy.

Otherwise, great suggestions! Read ‘em, follow ‘em.

— Diane

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Turns out, just because something is certified organic, that doesn’t always mean it’s “better for the environment.” Or even necessarily “better for you” than available alternatives.

See, turns out that buying “local” is maybe just as important as buying “certified organic.” As the article points out, veggies grown in China can be certified organic, but it takes a lot of fossil fuels to transport them from there to here. Those veggies leave a pretty big carbon footprint, so while they might be healthier for you than veggies grown with pesticides, they’re not necessarily healthier for the planet. Nor are they necessarily better for you than locally-grown produce, even if that local produce doesn’t have a piece of paper certifying it was grown organically.

It takes time and money to get a farm certified as “organic.” Turns out, for a lot of smaller farms, it may be too expensive to get officially certified. Even though they may, in fact, grow their veggies and raise their animals according to organic standards.

And when you consider the impact on the environment of transporting all that food halfway around the world, buying from small local farms suddenly begins to look even more attractive.

Here in the Triangle area of North Carolina, we still have a fair amount of agriculture nearby, and several active farmer’s markets, including a very large permanent setup over in Raleigh. But you know, even when I lived in the New York City metro area, I could take advantage of a “green market” in the old World Trade Center complex, where farmers would come in to the city once a week from upstate New York and rural New Jersey to sell wonderful fresh produce, baked goods and even plants to green up your apartment or office space.

Don’t know where your local farmer’s market is? Try checking with your state department of agriculture. Here’s a link to the North Carolina department’s page showing where to find farmer’s markets in North Carolina. And here’s a link to the National Sustainable Agriculture Information Service, which offers a directory of local food resources helping connect consumers with local producers.

Beyond that, several grocery stores in our area, such as Lowe’s Foods and Whole Foods, have made a commitment to offer locally-grown produce when they can. It’s just a matter of checking the label for the point of origin.

And it’s not just a matter of environmentalism or sustainability or any of those buzzwords. Locally-grown produce is often fresher (and better tasting) than stuff that’s spent a couple of weeks schlepping halfway around the world in a cargo container. Because of those transportation requirements, many commercially-grown plant varieties nowadays were selected more for their durability during travel than for either taste or nutrition. Local producers often grow “heirloom” varieties that are both more flavorful and more nutritious — but just can’t stand up to the sort of rough handling required by modern agribusiness.

So, do you know where your local farmer’s market is? Have you been there recently? Do you make a point of buying locally-grown produce when it’s available in your grocery stores?

Support your local agriculture. Think local. Buy local. It’s better for the planet, and it’s better for you and your family.

Copyright © Diane Aull. All rights reserved.

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