nobimbo
Wed, Aug-11-04, 13:22
The FDA eases its stance on fat
ANNA WILDE MATHEWS, and
Wednesday, August 11, 2004
(08-11) 08:06 PDT (AP) --
SARAH ELLISON
The Wall Street Journal
Government nutrition advisers since the early 1990s have conveyed a simple message: Eat less fat. But Americans have steadily gained weight -- lots of it -- making obesity one of the nation's top health concerns.
Now, the Food and Drug Administration, which regulates food labels and health claims on them, is easing its decade-long war on fat, and increasingly taking aim at calories. In an effort to draw attention to foods' overall caloric content, the agency may even change the "Nutrition Facts" box, eliminating the line giving the number of calories from fat, and increasing the type size for overall calories.
"When we emphasized fat in the early '90s, it didn't seem to work," says Lester Crawford, acting commissioner of the FDA. "We've concluded that the emphasis on low fat and no fat obscured the central message that calories are the main thing."
Fat's return to respectability began when researchers started looking into the differences between "bad" fats, such as saturated fats and trans fats, which can raise cholesterol levels and the risk of heart disease, and "good" fats, such as monounsaturated fats, which can help lower "bad" LDL cholesterol. Fat got another boost with the popularity of the Atkins diet and other low-carbohydrate regimens, which advise shedding pounds by sharply limiting starches, not fat.
Now, the FDA is furthering fat's comeback by permitting food makers to make health claims for foods that previously weren't allowed because of their fat content. Whole-grain foods considered to have "moderate" fat content, defined as less than 6.5 grams per serving, are being allowed to boast about heart benefits on their packages, a privilege the FDA once typically reserved for "low-fat" foods. Foods containing 13 grams or more of fat per serving are technically not allowed to make any positive health claims, but the FDA has begun granting more exceptions.
The FDA's changing stance is good news for an array of products that used to be hard to pitch as health food. Walnuts, for example, which are rich in polyunsaturated fatty acids that may help lower blood cholesterol, now can boast on their packages that as part of a healty diet they may reduce the risk of heart disease, despite their overall high-fat content.
In December, Kraft Foods Inc. got the FDA's permission to put a heart logo on boxes of Triscuits crackers linking foods "rich in whole grain" with a reduction in the risk of heart disease. To win approval for the claim, Kraft says it reformulated Triscuits, whacking out two grams of trans fats and replacing them with polyunsaturated oils, which lower both "good" and "bad" cholesterol. The company also reduced the saturated fat level by half a gram primarily by reducing the serving size to six crackers from seven, to bring the overall fat content down half a gram to 4.5 grams per six-cracker serving. In the past, the FDA generally would not have permitted such a claim.
"Since 1993, there has been a considerable shift in the scientific consensus about total fat and type of fat and heart disease," says Ronald J. Triani, Kraft's senior director of global scientific and regulatory affairs. By allowing health claims like the one on Triscuits, "FDA allows food manufacturers like Kraft more flexibility to deliver foods with other beneficial nutrients."
Ten years ago, when the FDA was writing the rules that would implement the sweeping food-labeling legislation of 1990, heart disease was viewed as America's No. 1 nutrition-related problem and America's high-fat diet was a major cause. Reflecting the times, the agency took aim squarely at fat, sharply limiting all kinds of health claims that fatty foods could make. Cheese producers, for example, couldn't assert the role of calcium in preventing osteoporosis on packages of some cheeses, because of their fat content. The typical standard for heart-related claims was even higher, requiring a product to have no more than three grams of fat per serving.
But the flood of low-fat foods that hit the market through the 1990s didn't reduce the national girth. Loaded with calories, many of these low-fat products just made people fatter. Reflecting a growing body of scientific evidence, the government's U.S. Dietary Guidelines for 2000 recommended a diet with "moderate" total fat, an increase from "low" total fat. The guidelines continued to call for tight limits on saturated fat and cholesterol.
The FDA, too, was beginning to take a new look at the issue. In 2000, the FDA gave two brands of spreads and dressings, Benecol from Johnson & Johnson's McNeil Nutritionals and Take Control from Unilever PLC, the go-ahead to make a claim that they "may reduce the risk of heart disease," despite their high fat contents. The Take Control spread, for instance, is 60 percent fat. But Unilever research showed that because of its other ingredients, the product could help reduce an individual's cholesterol by 10 percent.
Food companies saw in those products a signal that change was afoot. "More and more companies have come forward and said high fat per se is not really an issue," says David Blanchard, senior vice president of research and development at Unilever Bestfoods North America. "The issue is whether or not this food has a positive impact on health."
The FDA's Dr. Crawford says the agency will take a "modest sort of approach" to de-emphasizing fat. Food labels will always list the fat content. "We wouldn't want to just take it off," he says. In addition, food labels soon will be required to list foods' trans-fat content. The FDA is also considering how to describe on food labels the amount of trans fats consumers should eat, which nutritionists peg at little to none. The agency's chief counsel, Dan Troy, says the FDA "needs to line up our disclosure and information policy with where the science is."
The FDA has also signaled that while it may be flexible on foods that are high in total fat, it probably won't show the same latitude for saturated fat and trans fat. When producers of tree nuts asked the FDA for permission to boast that their products, including almonds and hazelnuts, could reduce the risk of heart disease, the FDA tentatively said it would waive its total fat limit and allow a version of the claim. But the agency rejected nuts that contained too much saturated fat. That left out cashews and macadamias, among others.
Processors of other foods are seeking to capitalize on the changing view of fat by using new health claims. In March, Kraft argued that labels on "mayonnaise-type dressings and spreads" should be able to proclaim the heart benefits of omega-3 fatty acids, even if the products surpass the FDA guidelines on total fat. Mr. Triani, in a letter to the FDA, argued that people would eat more products rich in these "good" fatty acids if marketers could talk about them on packages. The FDA hasn't issued a decision.
Also pending is a petition that Hormel Foods Corp. and an alliance of other olive-oil makers filed with the FDA last August. The group wants to boast on olive-oil bottles that their product, because of its monounsaturated-fat content, can reduce the risk of heart disease, despite its high total fat. The FDA hasn't decided this one either, but the group is already making plans for how to publicize their claim. Among the options the group is considering is a special promotional seal for the label.
"The consumer today needs to have the appropriate information and context in a fair and balanced way," says Larry Vorpahl, vice president and general manager of grocery products at Hormel, based in Austin, Minn.
The FDA has signaled it may move further to tone down the food label's fat focus. Dr. Crawford, the acting commissioner, says one idea "on the table" is to get rid of the rule disqualifying all high-fat foods from making health claims. In April, the FDA asked an advisory committee if heart-health claims should be limited to low-fat foods, and the group said they shouldn't.
Still, "we need to make sure that people don't take away that total fat doesn't matter," because fat is high in calories, says Suzanne Pelican, a nutrition specialist with the University of Wyoming's extension service in Laramie, who served on the committee. She and other nutritionists don't want to see an overreaction like the one from the early 1990s, when consumers gobbled "healthy" foods that were low in fat but high in carbohydrates and gained weight. Adds Chris Rosenbloom, a professor at Georgia State University in Atlanta: "It's not a license to eat as much as you want if foods contain 'good' fats."
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/news/archive/2004/08/11/financial1106EDT0066.DTL&type=health
ANNA WILDE MATHEWS, and
Wednesday, August 11, 2004
(08-11) 08:06 PDT (AP) --
SARAH ELLISON
The Wall Street Journal
Government nutrition advisers since the early 1990s have conveyed a simple message: Eat less fat. But Americans have steadily gained weight -- lots of it -- making obesity one of the nation's top health concerns.
Now, the Food and Drug Administration, which regulates food labels and health claims on them, is easing its decade-long war on fat, and increasingly taking aim at calories. In an effort to draw attention to foods' overall caloric content, the agency may even change the "Nutrition Facts" box, eliminating the line giving the number of calories from fat, and increasing the type size for overall calories.
"When we emphasized fat in the early '90s, it didn't seem to work," says Lester Crawford, acting commissioner of the FDA. "We've concluded that the emphasis on low fat and no fat obscured the central message that calories are the main thing."
Fat's return to respectability began when researchers started looking into the differences between "bad" fats, such as saturated fats and trans fats, which can raise cholesterol levels and the risk of heart disease, and "good" fats, such as monounsaturated fats, which can help lower "bad" LDL cholesterol. Fat got another boost with the popularity of the Atkins diet and other low-carbohydrate regimens, which advise shedding pounds by sharply limiting starches, not fat.
Now, the FDA is furthering fat's comeback by permitting food makers to make health claims for foods that previously weren't allowed because of their fat content. Whole-grain foods considered to have "moderate" fat content, defined as less than 6.5 grams per serving, are being allowed to boast about heart benefits on their packages, a privilege the FDA once typically reserved for "low-fat" foods. Foods containing 13 grams or more of fat per serving are technically not allowed to make any positive health claims, but the FDA has begun granting more exceptions.
The FDA's changing stance is good news for an array of products that used to be hard to pitch as health food. Walnuts, for example, which are rich in polyunsaturated fatty acids that may help lower blood cholesterol, now can boast on their packages that as part of a healty diet they may reduce the risk of heart disease, despite their overall high-fat content.
In December, Kraft Foods Inc. got the FDA's permission to put a heart logo on boxes of Triscuits crackers linking foods "rich in whole grain" with a reduction in the risk of heart disease. To win approval for the claim, Kraft says it reformulated Triscuits, whacking out two grams of trans fats and replacing them with polyunsaturated oils, which lower both "good" and "bad" cholesterol. The company also reduced the saturated fat level by half a gram primarily by reducing the serving size to six crackers from seven, to bring the overall fat content down half a gram to 4.5 grams per six-cracker serving. In the past, the FDA generally would not have permitted such a claim.
"Since 1993, there has been a considerable shift in the scientific consensus about total fat and type of fat and heart disease," says Ronald J. Triani, Kraft's senior director of global scientific and regulatory affairs. By allowing health claims like the one on Triscuits, "FDA allows food manufacturers like Kraft more flexibility to deliver foods with other beneficial nutrients."
Ten years ago, when the FDA was writing the rules that would implement the sweeping food-labeling legislation of 1990, heart disease was viewed as America's No. 1 nutrition-related problem and America's high-fat diet was a major cause. Reflecting the times, the agency took aim squarely at fat, sharply limiting all kinds of health claims that fatty foods could make. Cheese producers, for example, couldn't assert the role of calcium in preventing osteoporosis on packages of some cheeses, because of their fat content. The typical standard for heart-related claims was even higher, requiring a product to have no more than three grams of fat per serving.
But the flood of low-fat foods that hit the market through the 1990s didn't reduce the national girth. Loaded with calories, many of these low-fat products just made people fatter. Reflecting a growing body of scientific evidence, the government's U.S. Dietary Guidelines for 2000 recommended a diet with "moderate" total fat, an increase from "low" total fat. The guidelines continued to call for tight limits on saturated fat and cholesterol.
The FDA, too, was beginning to take a new look at the issue. In 2000, the FDA gave two brands of spreads and dressings, Benecol from Johnson & Johnson's McNeil Nutritionals and Take Control from Unilever PLC, the go-ahead to make a claim that they "may reduce the risk of heart disease," despite their high fat contents. The Take Control spread, for instance, is 60 percent fat. But Unilever research showed that because of its other ingredients, the product could help reduce an individual's cholesterol by 10 percent.
Food companies saw in those products a signal that change was afoot. "More and more companies have come forward and said high fat per se is not really an issue," says David Blanchard, senior vice president of research and development at Unilever Bestfoods North America. "The issue is whether or not this food has a positive impact on health."
The FDA's Dr. Crawford says the agency will take a "modest sort of approach" to de-emphasizing fat. Food labels will always list the fat content. "We wouldn't want to just take it off," he says. In addition, food labels soon will be required to list foods' trans-fat content. The FDA is also considering how to describe on food labels the amount of trans fats consumers should eat, which nutritionists peg at little to none. The agency's chief counsel, Dan Troy, says the FDA "needs to line up our disclosure and information policy with where the science is."
The FDA has also signaled that while it may be flexible on foods that are high in total fat, it probably won't show the same latitude for saturated fat and trans fat. When producers of tree nuts asked the FDA for permission to boast that their products, including almonds and hazelnuts, could reduce the risk of heart disease, the FDA tentatively said it would waive its total fat limit and allow a version of the claim. But the agency rejected nuts that contained too much saturated fat. That left out cashews and macadamias, among others.
Processors of other foods are seeking to capitalize on the changing view of fat by using new health claims. In March, Kraft argued that labels on "mayonnaise-type dressings and spreads" should be able to proclaim the heart benefits of omega-3 fatty acids, even if the products surpass the FDA guidelines on total fat. Mr. Triani, in a letter to the FDA, argued that people would eat more products rich in these "good" fatty acids if marketers could talk about them on packages. The FDA hasn't issued a decision.
Also pending is a petition that Hormel Foods Corp. and an alliance of other olive-oil makers filed with the FDA last August. The group wants to boast on olive-oil bottles that their product, because of its monounsaturated-fat content, can reduce the risk of heart disease, despite its high total fat. The FDA hasn't decided this one either, but the group is already making plans for how to publicize their claim. Among the options the group is considering is a special promotional seal for the label.
"The consumer today needs to have the appropriate information and context in a fair and balanced way," says Larry Vorpahl, vice president and general manager of grocery products at Hormel, based in Austin, Minn.
The FDA has signaled it may move further to tone down the food label's fat focus. Dr. Crawford, the acting commissioner, says one idea "on the table" is to get rid of the rule disqualifying all high-fat foods from making health claims. In April, the FDA asked an advisory committee if heart-health claims should be limited to low-fat foods, and the group said they shouldn't.
Still, "we need to make sure that people don't take away that total fat doesn't matter," because fat is high in calories, says Suzanne Pelican, a nutrition specialist with the University of Wyoming's extension service in Laramie, who served on the committee. She and other nutritionists don't want to see an overreaction like the one from the early 1990s, when consumers gobbled "healthy" foods that were low in fat but high in carbohydrates and gained weight. Adds Chris Rosenbloom, a professor at Georgia State University in Atlanta: "It's not a license to eat as much as you want if foods contain 'good' fats."
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/news/archive/2004/08/11/financial1106EDT0066.DTL&type=health