By James Limbach
ConsumerAffairs.com
January 8, 2010
With obesity on the rise, a lot of people are counting on food labels to help them manage their eating habits.
And, with people trying to lose weight choosing meals labeled as "lower in calories" or "reduced-energy" in restaurants and supermarkets, it is important that information on labels is accurate.
However, in a study published in the January 2010 issue of the Journal of the American Dietetic Association, Tufts University researchers found that some commercially prepared foods contained more calories than indicated in nutritional labeling.
Measured energy, or caloric, values of 29 quick-serve and sit-down restaurant foods averaged 18 percent more calories than the stated values. Likewise, measured energy values of 10 frozen meals purchased from supermarkets averaged eight percent more calories than stated on the label.
The commercially prepared restaurant foods and supermarket frozen convenience meals were obtained in the Boston area. The energy content was measured and compared with nutrition data on the label. The restaurant chains included both quick-serve and sit-down establishments with broad distribution throughout the United States.
Because the goal of the study was to examine the accuracy of stated energy content of foods typically selected for weight control, specific restaurant menu items were chosen based on three criteria. Selected foods were (1) less than 500 kcal/serving as stated on the label, (2) typical American foods and (3) among those with the lowest stated energy contents on the menu. Supermarket purchases were focused on frozen complete meals that would be alternative choices to eating out.
The researchers found a further complication with some restaurant meals. Five restaurants provided side dishes at no extra cost. The average energy provided by these items was 471 kcal, which was greater than the 443 kcal for the entres they accompanied.
Furthermore, some individual foods had discrepancies that were extreme, including three supermarket-purchased complete meals and seven restaurant foods that containing up to twice their stated energy contents.
The authors also note that the Food and Drug Administration allows up to 20 percent excess energy content but weight must be no less than 99 percent of the stated value. This might lead manufacturers to add more food to the package to insure compliance with the weight standards and thereby exceed the stated energy content.
Margo Wootan, director of Nutrition Policy Director at the Center for Science in the Public Interest CSPI, says the FDA's 20 percent allowance is actually "pretty reasonable."
She tells ConsumerAffairs.com says people like to think about nutrition information as being more precise that it really can be. "There are going to be certain errors in preparing and analyzing the samples." Thus, a certain margin of error is allowed and that's why CSPI doesn't have concerns about FDA's 20 percent allowance.
Wootan says FDA actually requires companies to round the calorie numbers so that there isn't more implied precision than there really is." Despite this, she says, menu labeling is valuable because "people can compare between items and make choices" when deciding what to eat.
The Tufts researchers maintain that the findings from their study "suggest that stated energy contents of reduced-energy meals obtained from restaurants and supermarkets are not consistently accurate, and in this study averaged more than measured values, especially when free side dishes were taken into account, which on average contained more energy than the entrees alone.
"For example, positive energy balance of only 5 percent per day for an individual requiring 2,000 kcal/day could lead to a 10-lb weight gain in a single year. If widespread, this phenomenon could hamper efforts to self-monitor energy intake to control weight, and could also reduce the potential benefit of recent policy initiatives to disseminate information on food energy content at the point of purchase," they conclude.
