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There is no reason why you should not buy overdue products, especially if they are reduced in price, because the onus is on the shopkeeper to provide goods which live up to the quality of their description, in other words they must not be bad or ‘off’. With the longer time datings you are safe in buying goods that are near the end of their expiry date if the shop is clean and well maintained. However if such a product has deteriorated, even if bought at a special price, your legal rights are not affected and you should complain first of all to the shop manager then, if no satisfaction is obtained, to your local Trading Standards Officer, whom you can locate through the Town Hall. It is often preferable, though, to write a nice letter, fully documented, with a sample, to the Managing Director of the company concerned who will often, for the sake of goodwill (and most of the food companies are very jealous of their good reputation), refund your cost and may even give you something extra besides. However, if you are on the make, beware, because most manufacturers keep very accurate records of complainants and get wise to the person who frequently finds a dead mouse in a meat pie.
Foods for special nutritional purposes are subject to the provisions of an EEC Directive which strictly controls all claims and declarations in respec of infant, diabetic, slimming and other foods which purport to be for a group of people with special nutritional needs. There is a problem in that some excellent foods which have a nutritional purpose may not, in the future, be able to declare it without a Medicines Licence! For example, a bran based breakfast cereal may not be able to say that it ‘helps constipation’, but it can say ‘helps to keep you regular’ as that is not a medical claim. Too often we are seeing legislation which is designed for consumer protection which effectively shields the consumer from the information needed to make an informed decision. It should surely be sufficient with regard to most claims that labels and advertising are decent, honest and truthful.
Polyunsaturated Fatty Acid Claims
The COMA and NACNE reports on what we should eat for a healthy diet include in their recommendations the view that we should cut down on our total fat intake, have a relatively high proportion of polyunsaturated fatty acids (which are the sort of fats that you have in oils like sunflower, safflower, soya and corn) and consume less animal and dairy fat. This is because such a dietary change is thought to be good for the heart. However, the manufacturer is not allowed by law to tell you that! Before any claims relating to polyunsaturated fatty acids can be made the food has to contain at least 35 per cent of fat by weight. In that fat at least 45 per cent of the fatty acids must be polyunsaturated and not more than 25 per cent saturated.
The claim has to be accompanied by the words ‘low in saturates’ or ‘low in saturated fatty acids’ and the food must be marked with a declaration in grammes per 100 grammes or millilitres of the food stating the amount of fat or oil and the amount of polyunsaturated fatty acids (which are cis, cis-methylene interrupted polyunsaturated fatty acids) and also the amount of saturated fatty acids. Each pan of the declaration has to be given equal prominence.
If, in addition, the claim is made that it is low in cholesterol, then the food must not contain more than 0.005 per cent of cholesterol and it must be possible to make polyunsaturated fatty acid claims. As in the former case there can be no expressed or implied suggestion that such products are beneficial to health. You have to read the label carefully to see that such a claim is being made if you want to choose truly polyunsaturated margarines such as Flora or, from health stores, the very desirable Vitaquell which contains no animal or dairy ingredients and which has not been hardened by the hydrogenation process.
In the USA sensible and accurate claims for reduced cholesterol foods are allowed as are true statements about the advantages of polyunsaturates. So long as such claims are well controlled they could help many people to change their diet for the better and lessen the risk of heart disease.
Vitamins and Minerals
The Labelling of Food Regulations specify in two schedules the vitamins and minerals for which claims can be made. The word ‘claim’ has a specific meaning. Vitamins and minerals which are not in the schedule cannot be mentioned at all on a food product except in the nutritional declaration, the name of the product (if it is a food supplement) and the list of ingredients. Anything additional to these three places becomes a claim.
Where it is claimed that the food is a rich or excellent source of vitamins or minerals the quantity of food that can reasonably be expected to be consumed in one day must contain at least one half of the recommended daily amount of two or more of the vitamins or minerals in the schedule. Otherwise the claim that the food contains the vitamins and minerals can only be made if the quantity of food that can reasonably be expected to be consumed in one day contains at least one sixth of the recommended daily amount of two or more of the vitamins or minerals in the list.
If the claim is confined to named vitamins or minerals then every vitamin or mineral named must be specified in one of the schedules and is then subject to the same requirements as before. The names used in declaring the vitamins must be the names in the first column of the schedules, with or without the words that appear in three cases in brackets.
The names for other vitamins are also specified by law, and are: vitamin B
, pantothenic acid, biotin, vitamin E and vitamin K. The purpose of this is to prevent people making claims for the existence of vitamins that are not recognized by science, such as vitamin B
and vitamin F.
The following are the two schedules:
Table AVitamins in respect of which claims may be made
Table BMinerals in respect of which claims may be made
Notes
1. Each vitamin and mineral specified in Tables A and B above includes its biologically active derivative.
2. The quantity of any vitamin or mineral specified in Table A or B above (as extended by note 1 above) shall be calculated in accordance with column 2 of the appropriate Table.
From Labelling of Food Regulations No. 1305, 1984.
The idea behind these two schedules was to prevent manufacturers from making claims for vitamins and minerals for which there is no evidence of a shortage. So the schedules represent vitamins and minerals which may be short in the diet and, therefore, all other vitamins and minerals are thought to be present in sufficient quantities in any likely diet. Unfortunately this has led to a very confusing situation, especially with regard to the sale of food supplements such as vitamin, mineral and trace element tablets and capsules which contain either a mixture of scheduled and non-scheduled substances or even exclusively non-scheduled substances. It means that neither in advertising nor on the pack can the manufacturer tell the consumer why the ingredient is there and what it does unless it is on the schedule. A mixture of vitamins A, C and E would therefore have a product description telling you all about vitamins A and C but not saying a single word about vitamin E.
There is much doubt as to whether the list is by any means appropriate to modern day living, and there is increasing evidence that there are substantial groups of people who do not have enough zinc, selenium, magnesium, or vitamins B
and E. Groups at risk include children and adolescents on a sugary, fatty diet, and women who take the birth control pill and may need far more B
than can be obtained in a likely diet. Unless vegetarians are careful they can be short of zinc, and there is a general shortage of selenium in British soil which used to be supplemented by the use of selenium rich Manitoba wheat for bread making, but now that we make most of our bread from British flour, we could have too little in the diet.
A Committee on the Medical Aspects of Food has been convened under the chairmanship of Dr Roger Whitehead to look at this whole question and suggest a new list of Recommended Daily Amounts, but it is not unreasonable to hope that the position of vitamin and mineral pill manufacturers can be regularized before the Committee reports and that regulations can be made so that they are not prevented by law from giving accurate nutritional and biological information about the ingredients to the public—surely an absurd and unnecessary restraint upon our freedom.
What is an Additive?
According to the Codex Alimentarius, a food additive is: ‘Any substance not normally consumed as a food by itself and not normally used as a typical ingredient of food, whether or not it has nutritive value, the intentional addition of which to food for a technological (including organoleptic) purpose in the manufacture, processing, preparation, treatment, packing, packaging, transport or holding of such food results in, or may be reasonably expected to result (directly or indirectly) in it or its by-products becoming a component of or otherwise affecting the characteristics of such. The term does not include “contaminants” or substances added to food for maintaining or improving nutritional qualities.’ (‘Organoleptic’ means sight, taste, smell and texture as perceived by the senses.)
Because manufacturers can use either the E number or the proper name of the additive as an alternative, they often choose to use the name on the premise that it is less ‘frightening’ than the E number. On the other hand, some ingredients which have valuable nutritional properties can cause confusion because they have names that look very much like additives, whereas in fact they are not in that class.
A good example is soya protein isolate, which is the valuable protein part of the soya bean in a very pure state and is an extraordinarily good source of very nutritious protein. It can make meat products in particular, such as sausages and pies, as well as a number of other dishes and drinks, more nutritious than they would be without it, and also has useful technical properties in giving the product a better appearance and texture.
Again, if you use an egg yolk because of the emulsifying properties of its natural lecithin then it is declared as the ingredient ‘egg-yolk’ and not as ‘E322’, lecithin.
Meat Products
Regulations governing meat products and spreadable fish products were laid before Parliament in October 1984. Like the E-numbering provisions, these came into full operation in July 1986.
Polyphosphates (E450) allow the manufacturer to add water to meat products without it becoming obvious to the consumer. If the meat is cooked or raw and contains added water, then the producer will have to declare: ‘with not more than x per cent added water.’ X is the maximum added water content of the food. On the other hand, if the meat is uncooked and cured, such as bacon, of which more than 10 per cent is added water, then the declaration has to say ‘with not more than y per cent added water’; but that does not mean that this figure represents the amount of added water—y represents a multiple of 5 by which the percentage of water in the product exceeds 10 per cent! Finally, to make matters clear to our (presumably computer owning!) consumer—if it is cooked pure meat then the declaration has to say ‘with not more than z per cent added water’, z being an indication in multiples of 5 of the percentage of water added.
There is a list of parts of the carcass which may not be used in uncooked meat products—and may therefore be used in cooked meat products. You will be glad to know what comprehensive use manufacturers of cooked meat products can make of the slaughtered animal; they can use the brains, foot, large intestine, small intestine lungs, oesophagus, rectum, spinal cord, spleen, stomach, testicles, and udder. There has to be an argument for manufacturers to tell us just what parts of the animal are used and how much, not just to use the blanket description ‘offal’.
A meat pie weighing between 100g and 200g must have a meat content of not less than 21 per cent of the total. If the pie weighs less than 100g the meat content can shrink to 19 per cent of the food, otherwise the meat content can soar to the dizzy heights of 25 per cent as a minimum; but, of these percentages, the lean meat content need only be half so, at the worst, a quarter of a pound pork pie may contain just over a third of an ounce of lean meat—and it may include unexpected parts of the beast.
The true nature of the contents are then disguised in taste and appearance by the use of flavour enhancers, such as monosodium glutamate (number 621). It can then be coloured, flavoured and, after the addition of the appropriate amount of water, you can have at the worst, a very fatty pie but one which looks and tastes good. Though of course there are many pie manufacturers who certainly do use the finest ingredients, it would be worth their while making clear claims. The fat content of burgers and sausages is also controlled, in general so that the fat content of the meat pan of burgers does not exceed 35 per cent and of sausages, 50 per cent.
Many German meat products are labelled with their fat content. In order to be able to eat sensibly we should demand that such information be available throughout the EEC.
The British government wants to introduce fat content labelling but are being opposed by the EEC. Many responsible food manufacturers are now labelling the fat content voluntarily and this is to be encouraged.
2. Why Are There Still Secret Ingredients? (#ulink_d90c72c6-8b28-5674-a750-882572c158f4)
The Food Labelling Regulations of 1984 introduced the E-code which made it much easier to identify at least some of the additives in our food. But did they go far enough? There is, in fact, a wide range of foods and other things we swallow where we are not told what the ingredients are.
Alcoholic Drinks
Any drink with an alcoholic strength by volume of more than 1.2 per cent does not have to list the ingredients. This means that if you are, for example an asthmatic and are particularly sensitive to sulphur dioxide (E220), which is a commonly used preservative in wines, beers and ciders, then you have no way of telling whether it is present or not, let alone whether the content is near the permitted maximum or very low. If you are sensitive then you have to look out for the whole range of sulphites—E220 to 227—but when the Dutch Consumer Organization tested a selection of wines in 1985, they found that some of them had higher than the permitted limits of sulphur dioxide.
A test published in Which? magazine in May 1986 found that a number of the nineteen wines tested were near the maximum and that, if you regularly drank just a quarter litre (2 glasses) of most of the white wines, or one third of a litre (2
/
glasses) of some of the reds, you could exceed the Acceptable Daily Intake.
The EEC permits aeration, which is usually done with carbon dioxide (E290), to make cheap sparkling ‘bubbly’. To encourage the growth of yeasts during fermentation there is permission for an addition of diammonium phosphate or ammonium sulphate (no E numbers) up to a level of 0.3g/l either separately or combined. You can also feed the yeast by the addition of thiamin hydrochloride (vitamin B,) up to 0.6mg/l.
The sulphites that may be used include not only sulphur dioxide but also potassium bisulphite and potassium metabisulphite. White wines can be treated during fermentation with charcoal to a maximum of 100g of dry charcoal per hectolitre to remove impurities.
Wine has to be clarified, or cleared, after fermentation. However, some of the ingredients and processing aids that might be used provide significant moral problems for certain sections of the population who surely have the right to know if such items are being included in the process. The full list is:
—edible gelatines (made from bones)
—isinglass (made from the swim-bladders of fish)
—casein and potassium caseinate (milk proteins)
—animal albumin (egg albumin and dried blood powder)
—bentonite (clay) (558)
—silicon dioxide as a gel or colloidal solution (551)
—kaolin (a clay) (559)
—tannin (from wood)
—pectinolytic enzymes.
The use of sorbic acid (E200) or potassium sorbate (E202) is permitted. This stops the growth of yeasts and moulds. The final sorbic acid content of the treated product on its release to the market for human consumption must not exceed 200mg/l.
Tartaric acid (E334) for acidification purposes is permitted, but if there is too much acid, the following may be added under certain conditions:
—neutral potassium tartrate (E336)
—potassium bicarbonate (no E number)
—calcium carbonate (E170) which may contain small quantities of the double calcium salt of L(+)tartaric (E334) and L( – )malic acids (296).
The addition of Aleppo pine resin is permitted, the purpose being to turn wine into retsina, the typical Greek wine.
L-ascorbic acid (E300) can be added up to 150mg/l and as well as the vitamin C, citric acid can be added for wine stabilization provided that the final content does not exceed lg/1.
Potassium ferrocyanide (536) can be added to white and rosé wines, as can zinc sulphate heptahydrate (which does not seem to appear on the permitted list) which are used together for ‘blue finings’. Red wines can also use calcium phytate (no E number) with up to 100mg/1 of metatartaric acid (E353).
Gum acacia (E414) is another permitted additive. DL tartaric acid (E334) precipitates excess calcium, and ion and cation exchange resins can be employed in certain conditions.
Some countries permit the use of discs of pure paraffin impregnated with allyl isothiocyanate (no E number) to create a sterile atmosphere in containers holding more than 20 litres, but there may not be any trace of allyl isothiocyanate in the wine.
Potassium bitartrate (no E number) can be used to assist the precipitation of tartar. The wine can also be treated with up to 20mg/l of copper sulphate (no E number), provided that the copper content in the treated product does not exceed lmg/1.
So you see that there is more to wine than the simple product of the fermentation of grape juice.
Beer
German beer has traditionally been made from just four ingredients—hops, malt, yeast and water. This was the result of the Reinheitsgebot, which was a consumer protection law issued by Duke Wilhelm IV of Bavaria in 1516.
Germany’s annual beer consumption is currently 146.5 litres for every man, woman and child. On 12 March 1987 the European Court in Luxembourg overturned the country’s decree banning imports of additive-containing beers from other countries. Even Bonn’s claim that beer makes up a quarter of the average German man’s diet so that the additives could be dangerous to health, did not move the court. It was counter-claimed that when the Germans exported their beer to other countries they were known to put in additives that are not permitted in Germany.
The Germans will go on producing their pure beers for home consumption and it is quite likely that the many undeclared additives in British beers will effectively deter the German beer drinker from buying them.
In particular, we need to be worried about the substantial additions of caramel (E150), which is the most widely used of all food colours and gives many beers, especially mild, stout, premium bitters, and strong ales, their colour. The 1987 Food Advisory Committee report on colours recommends that there be a maximum content not exceeding 5,000mg/kg, which seems rather high, as the same committee’s recommendation for brown bread is a maximum of 2,000mg/kg. Additives in use in beer include agents which keep a good head of froth on the beer and, as in wine, many technical aids, but there is no way of knowing just how ‘real’ is real ale, let alone the beverages which do not have such honest pretentions. An interesting and effective alternative to caramel is a refined malt. This might be classed as an ingredient rather than an additive.
Other Alcoholic Drinks
Look around any good off-licence and you will see that there must be a very wide variety of colours and additives in use ranging from caramel in whisky to goodness knows what in certain of the more exotic aperitifs and liqueurs. Effectively, there is no regulation whatsoever other than the general provisions of the Food Act.
Unless there is the safeguard of ingredient labelling on alcoholic drinks, disastrous and dangerous episodes such as the Austrian wine scandal—which proved to involve many more countries than just Austria—are certain to happen again. In July 1984 diethylene-glycol was found in Austrian wine in as many as 82 different brands, both in Germany and in Britain. Diethyleneglycol can be used as an anti-freeze, but when added to wine it improves the flavour, so that cheap wines can be sold as superior, more costly products. The expert view is that a consumption of 0.3ml of this contaminant daily is a potential health hazard to the kidneys and that 100ml can be fatal.
A bottle tested in Barnsley was found to contain 1.5ml, and so a heavy drinker could be endangered not only by the alcohol but also by the additive. It is ironic that the only reason the Austrian wine scandal was discovered was that one of the companies using diethylene-glycol in the wine requested a refund of the Value Added Tax. A sharp VAT inspector questioned the large volume of anti-freeze being used in the summer and the scandal was uncovered!
However, the fact is that food inspectors do not generally look very closely at the products which do not have lists of ingredients. Therefore, as things stand, we have very little protection against abuse.
Until public pressure and government action puts this situation to rights there is no reason at all why responsible manufacturers should not voluntarily tell us what is in their drinks. There will be a free, signed copy of this book and a place in history for the first three producers of alcoholic drinks who change their policy by listing all those additives and processing aids in all their products.
Fruit Juices and Fruit Nectars
The 1984 Labelling of Food Regulations seem at least reasonably clear but when you look back to other and earlier regulations concerning a specific food then, either through design or oversight, worms begin to creep out of the woodwork or, to be more specific, the two ingredients need not be declared in fruit juices and nectars when they are below certain levels.
Without making any declaration you can add up to 15 grammes per litre of added sugar and have present up to 10 milligrammes per litre of the preservative sulphur dioxide (E220).
These are both small amounts but it would not surprise me if products labelled pure or natural did sometimes contain these additions, so misleading the consumer as to the true nature of the product.
Chocolate and Fancy Confectionery
If you had picked up a Mars bar in the middle of 1987 you would have found no list of ingredients although the percentage of cocoa butter was given. This is still true of the majority of chocolate confectionary made in the UK. For reasons which are not stated by MAFF and cannot be logical or helpful, chocolates do not have to list ingredients. That this protection is not necessary and should be abandoned was made very clear by Mars who have since had the honesty and courage to list their ingredients in full. Have certain other manufacturers something to hide?
How can it be that the manufacturers of chocolates with brightly coloured centres that are almost certainly coloured artificially should be allowed to conceal this information? The vast majority of such manufacturers have nothing to hide and everything to gain by telling us all about the good wholesome ingredients that they may be using.
The same lack of information is permitted on fancy confectionery products packed as single items in such forms as a figure, an animal, cigarette, egg, or any other fancy form. Again, some manufacturers tell you what the product is made from. Let us hope the rest follow suit.
Additives in Ingredients and Some Other Exemptions
If an additive has been used in an ingredient which is part of a product containing a number of different ingredients, then the additive does not have to be declared if it serves no significant technological function in the finished product. So, if you buy a breakfast cereal containing apple flakes and the apple flakes look white, this could be because they were carefully processed or it could be because they have an added preservative. There is no way of knowing the difference unless the producer volunteers the information. The same considerations apply to a wide range of foodstuffs.
Bread and Other Fresh Foods
Fresh unwrapped bread carries no list of ingredients simply because there is nowhere to put it. The same applies to cakes and pastries. But when the product is wrapped and sold in an off-the-shelf form, then certain ingredients have to be listed, and you may well find that your wholemeal bread and, even more probably, your brown bread, contains added caramel and numerous other ingredients that are not necessary in the kitchen.
There is no good reason why the foods in the baker’s or the butcher’s that have been prepared on the premises have no list of ingredients. It would be easy to do and it would help us make an informed choice.
In addition to the unnamed additives on unwrapped bread there are also additives which do not have to be declared even when the product is wrapped. Chief among these must be the flour bleach, benzoyl peroxide (no E number). It is certainly very puzzling that we in Britain need to use a bleach at all when most leading European countries have either banned bleaches or found them completely unnecessary. Another area of contamination is the lingering presence of pesticides and fungicides applied not only to the growing crops but also in the storage silos to prevent insect infestation and fungal growth.
Ham and other meat products on the delicatessen counter have to show the amount of water present (at any rate to some extent, see page 25) but the other additives only need to be identified by their category name, a throw-back to the 1970 regulations. So a ham description may say ‘maximum 25 per cent added water, added preservative and colour’, unless it is in a packet.
Such loopholes are a negation of all the progress made in other areas of food labelling. The largest part of all food sold in this way is produced by manufacturers who are perfectly able to provide a label for the point of sale giving, in a legible size of lettering, the same information that would be required if the same product were sold in a packet instead of loose, or else it is produced by the shop itself, who must know the recipe.
Even the present very limited regulations are being openly abused in large numbers of shops where no ingredient information at all is supplied about the loose foods on sale. Our Trading Standards Officers, who should be enforcing the rules, have limited resources but are usually most helpful when apparent breaches of the regulations are drawn to their attention. It is a courtesy, however, to first warn the shop management of any likely problem so that they can put things right.
Medicines
A licensed medicine has only to state the details of the active ingredient or ingredients. All the other components of the product are exempt from labelling requirements.
