Saltmatters

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Wrong Labels

CHECK THIS PAGE REGULARLY--

FOOD COMPANIES CAN MAKE MISTAKES

Never trust the Nutrition Information Panel if the sodium content makes no sense when compared with the ingredient list. Food companies can make mistakes just like everybody else.

A few companies that can afford it have made a nationwide product recall to correct a big mistake and protect their reputation, but government health authorities usually allow companies to use up their old labels--discarding a large stock is a big expense to a small company. This fails to remove the health hazard, but a small correction label would protect consumers and reduce legal liability for false and misleading information.

LEGAL LIABILITY

A legal risk of undeclared sodium is that a patient with Meniere's Disorder could have a bad attack of vertigo with severe vomiting--simply from trusting a purportedly low salt food that was not true to label. The patient loses at least one day's work and may remain unsteady and convalescent for the rest of the week. The purpose of this page is to prevent that as far as possible.

This page protects both salt skippers and the producers of products that are not yet not true to label. It reports all the LOW SALT foods we come across that look suspicious and turn out to be HIGH SALT foods with WRONG LABELS NOT YET CORRECTED.

We will list each product until the company tells us the new stock has arrived, and until we see that the new labels have replaced all the old labels in the shops.

THE TEAM

Trevor Beard has been working closely with Peter Chamberlain, whose amateur website is at www.findlowsaltfood.info, with input from Allan Martin who has another amateur website at http://home.exetel.com.au/sharksaus/ Other collaborators are Rick Keam, editor and writer with an earlier background in community health research and fellow-member of AWASH (Australian Division of World Action on Salt and Health) and Mike Busby, IT specialist and new salt skipper with yet another amateur website at www.lowsaltrecipes.org

Trevor and Peter have had full access to expert technical advice and encouragement from Eric Johnson, Principal Advisor for Food Safety in Tasmania, and Michael Apollonov, his counterpart in NSW.

Responsible authorities like the state government in Tasmania and NSW (and local governments in Victoria and WA) can always take over difficult cases and follow up if necessary with legal enforcement—an excellent example of the gains to public health that can come from fruitful collaboration between the voluntary and public sectors.

You can see the job we can do together if you use this link to a page of interesting examples

HOW TO READ THIS PAGE

The table below displays the information in summary form with each product on one line. A click on each link (blue underlined word) in the table will take you to background information on why the label aroused our suspicions. If this helps you to spot another suspicious product, please send the details by email to saltmatters@utas.edu.au so that we can follow it up.

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Muffin Mix, Apple & Blueberry, Low GI
GREEN'S GENERAL FOODS.
The ingredient list is:
Fructose, maize starch, wheat flour, wheat gluten, buttermilk powder, dried apple pieces (6.5%) [contains preservative (220)], dried blueberries (3%) [blueberries, sugar, vegetable oil], vegetable fats and oils [emulsifiers (471, 477), antioxidant (320)], raising agents (450), sodium bicarbonate), natural flavours, salt, vegetable gums(412, 415). Nearly every competitor made like this with ordinary baking powder and added salt have a sodium content of over 500 mg/100g.

Flour, organic self-raising
SOLAND HEALTH FOODS
The ingredient list is:
Wheat (wholemeal), leavening agents 450 and 500 (acceptable organic additives).

Additive 450 may be potassium pyrophosphate, sodium acid pyrophosphate or sodium pyrophophate. Only sodium acid pyrophosphate would serve as the acid salt in a baking powder (the other two are neutral). Additive 500 is sodium carbonate or sodium bicarbonate. The latter is the one always used and the alkali in a baking powder.

Plain flour with no additives has a sodium content of 3 mg/100g, but this is a conventional self-raising flour made with ordinary baking powder. A typical sodium content is about 700 mg/100g, and 551 mg/100g is unexpectedly low.

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Self-raising flour with a sodium content of 3 mg/100g

To make self-raising flour with a sodium content of 3 mg/100g—true to label—you can mix plain flour with Salt Skip Baking Powder (see Salt Matters, Appendix 4, pages 247 to 250). For retail availaility ask eumarrah@trump.net.au for the name of their distributor in your state. Give that to your nearest health food shop if they don't already stock it. Another alternative is direct mail order from Eumarrah, very convenient if you have a rural address.
A gluten-free no-added-sodium self-raising flour has been on the Australian market now for several years, made by F G Roberts.

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Organic cannellini beans
BIONATURE
The ingredient list is:
Organic beans, water and salt. The label makes no claim that they are low in salt, and they taste salty like other canned beans. They are imported from Italy, where sodium content is often unreliable at present. The decimal point (84.6) would not be seen in a laboratory report, so it is almost certainly based on food tables—another source of error in inexperienced hands.

INTERESTING EXAMPLES

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1. Woolworths Home Brand Taco Seasoning

In 2003 Salt Skippers were raving about Woolworhs Home Brand Taco Mix with a sodium content of 30 mg/100g and a flavour just like any other taco mix. But they were not looking at the ingredient list, where salt comes second in a list of 11 ingredients. Woolworths were quite sure at first that 30 mg/100g was correct, and their supplier even said that competitors had similar figures, at a time when Woolworths were selling Old El Paso Taco Seasoning Mix on the same shelf with 6540 mg/100g.

Woolworths made a nation-wide product recall when Analytical Services Tasmania reported that Home Brand Taco Seasoning had a sodium content of 7760 mg/100g.

Woolworths changed their supplier, and the new label (alongside) tells a different story.

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2. Coles prosecuted for a wrong label

The Western Australian newspaper for 10 Novembner 2005 reported that Armadale Shire Council in WA had prosecuted Coles Supermarkets for selling sausages with a false and misleading label. The Nutrition Information Panel declared a sodium content of 895 mg/100g but an analytical laboratory reported 1465 mg/100g.

Food regulations are a responsibility of local government in WA and the Mayor of Armadale told the reporter that the Shire Council discovered the error in the course of a regular sampling program.
CASTLE BACON had made the sausages. They pleaded guilty to a charge of labelling food intended for sale in a false and misleading manner, and were fined $1250. Coles Supermarkets were fined $750 but ordered to pay costs. Costs came to $14 000, as Coles had engaged a leading law firm and the legal battle had run for two years, with over a dozen adjournments.

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3. Green olive paste

Most people who love olives find them uneatable when their palates have adapted to low salt foods. Both black and green olives are saltier than seawater.

One strict salt skipper was amazed to discover a green olive paste that claimed to have a zero sodium content. It was an Italian import from Fattorie Umbre sold (illegally) with its original European label giving the sodium content in grams (0.0 g).

It had a salt free ingredient list with only two items--olives (93%) and extra virgin olive oil. As it seemed so clear that no salt was added, the instructions to refrigerate it after opening and consume it within 7 days made sense.

The strong flavour of green olives was delicious on toast and he could not convince himself that salt was present, but his wife definitely tasted salt. Eric Johnson (Tasmanian State Food Officer) thought he detected salt too. Analytical Services Tasmania reported a sodium content of 1430 mg/100g and the European label should have shown it as 1.43 g/100g.

Comment

It is surprising how completely the palate can be deceived, except perhaps for the known tendency to believe what we want to believe.

We saw above that Coles lost $14,750 for saying a high salt sausage was a little under the salt content of seawater when it was really a bit higher than that. For this outrageously false and misleading label on green olive paste, what penalty do the retailers, the importer and the food company deserve?

The importer thanked the Tasmanian State Food Officer for the information but said the market performance was disappointing and this import was about to be discontinued (SIC).

How could any company be so grossly incompetent?

Australian food companies are allowed to estimate sodium content from food tables, and this probably applies to Italian companies. The sodium content of fresh green olives is 3 mg/100g (0.003 g/100g). European labels use grams to one decimal place, and the office staff at Fattorie Umbre converted this to 0.0 g/100g, being apparently unaware that green olives reach the factory packed in brine.
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4. Corned beef

Only a novice would check a can of corned beef for sodium--CORNING in the meat trade means using coarse salt ('corns' of salt) in the large amounts needed to kill all food-spoilage bacteria.

A new patient at the Menzies Clinic in Hobart with disappointing urine results for sodium excretion was making several mistakes. One was to buy Fray Bentos canned corned beef with a declared sodium content of 100 mg/100g.

Grounds for suspicion

The label made no low salt claim, and salt came second in the ingredient list--cooked beef (97%), salt, sugar and preservatives.
No analysis was necessary. The Fray Bentos trademark belongs to Campbell's Soups and their Australian agent (Arnott's Biscuits) made a nationwide product recall on the day they received a call from the Tasmanian State Food Officer. When we tried to buy another can on the following day it was already unobtainable.
Two months later this product reappeared with a declared sodium content of 800 mg/100g.

The likely explanation?

Converting 800 to 100 is hard to explain by anything but a random misprint. Any other plausible theories are welcome at saltmatters@utas.edu.au

The usual sodium content of corned beef is 1200 mg/100g or more, and 800 mg is very low. Canning would preserve it of course at any salt content.

Business ethics and public liability

This was another catastrophic error in its potential health consequences. A UK proposal for food labels could give us a useful yardstick for the size of the error. The multiple traffic light system of food labelling pictured below would show consumers at a glance how well a processed food fitted the UK dietary guidelines for fat, saturated fat, sugar and salt:

Health professionals treating a salt-related illness could just recommend people to eat plenty of fresh foods and select the processed foods that had a green spot for salt (sodium content no more than 120 mg/100g).

In this proposal yellow spots for salt start above 120 mg/100g and red spots above 500 mg/100g, but for good health a better boundary would be 400 mg/100g, where meals first begin to cause salt-related illness (thirst and fluid retention).

If Fray Bentos corned beef used coloured spots like this the change from 100 mg/100g to 800 mg/100g would be big enough to replace a green spot with a red spot for salt.

Product recall could be negotiable when green-spot foods needed yellow spots but essential when they needed red spots. Responsible companies already do this voluntarily, as Arnott's Biscuits have done here with Fray Bentos corned beef.

Page last modified on: Tuesday 06 Nov, 2007