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popsci_2013 02750.txt

#Low-Fat, Nonfat, Gluten-Free: How The Government Influences Health Claims On Packaged Food Noticed a lot of new gluten-free and no trans fat snacks in your grocery store lately? It's not just you. A new study from the U s. Department of agriculture found that gluten and trans fat labels are the quickest-growing categories of food-packaging claims. Also hot now: Claims about antioxidants and omega-3 fatty acids. The USDA has tracked apparently health and nutrition claims on every single new packaged food introduced between 1989 and 2010. That's a lot of food labels yo. The results offer a quantitative look at food trends in the U s. over time. They also show that the government can have a huge influence on what gets sold. Shifts in packaging claims happened right alongside legislation about what companies can can't and must say about their products. The biggest piece of legislation that passed during the USDA study was the Nutrition Labeling and Education Act of 1990 which mandated the nutrition-facts label every packaged food item carries today and set rules regulating what exactly counts as low fat high fiber and other claims. The act appeared to effectively combat false advertising the study's author economist Stephen Martinez writes. Between 1989 and 2001 the percentage of new packages that included health and nutrition claims went down overall with the steepest decline seen in food categories such as oils and fats--including shortening and cooking spray--and baked goods. Meanwhile for some categories of food--fruits and vegetables for instance--the number of claims went up. The results were just what the Department of agriculture wanted to see. The post-NLEA environment was successful in inducing greater health focus in advertising for the foods targeted for increased consumption such as fruit and vegetables compared to foods targeted for reduced consumption such as fats and oils Martinez writes. Since 2001 the number of health claims on packages has gone up again. Martinez attributes that to companies trying to market to people's increased awareness of health issues and weight loss which he measured by counting the number of obesity-related programs aired on major TV news channels. In 2010 43 percent of new foods had some kind of nutrition claim. On average foods with at least one claim were actually healthier than packaged foods in general Martinez found. Foods with claims also tended to sell better. In another example of how much legislation can affect food Martinez looked at what happened after the Food and Drug Administration required trans fat labeling starting in 2006. By 2010 no trans fats was the fifth most popular nutrition claim on new packaged foods even though no packages in 2001 said anything about trans fats. Meanwhile Martinez's tables and charts of top claims on packages over time are fascinating (see one example below. You can see the appearance of the low-fat craze in the 1990s the popularity of the Atkins diet in the early 2000s and the gluten-free fad right now. I don't know about you but I've got friends who went through all three diets. Why isn't ANYONE exporting this valuable information to the third world? From what we've been taught feeding skinny kids Happy Meals & large cola after 6pm will fatten up our little orphins around the world quicker than anything. And it was under our noses the entire time! As a Celiac I kind of resent your comment that being gluten free is a fad. Could it possibly be that wheat has become so gentically altered more and more of our systems can no longer handle it? You're right easier to write of thousands with a disease and call it a diet fad. Please support my petition for the Girl scouts to sell a gluten free and allergen free cookie. Go to change. org and search for girl scouts gluten free cookiei completely agree and side with shadow it's not a fad at all Wheat sucks becaus of generations of genetic enigeering to wheat The number of people diagnosed with Celiac disease is skyrocketing The gluten free market a couple years ago was worth half a million and now it's worth billions because of so many new customers Fotobum really???I am very allergic to wheat for instance if their is a trace of wheat in barbecue sauce and I eat it! I get get server Symtoms. For 2 weeks Headaches all the time cognitive impairment AIGHT NO BODY GOT TUNE FOR THAT especially the fact that I'm in collage@Glutenfreedman Dude sorry about yout symptoms but I don't have problems with gluten-freers that just leaves more for the rest of us. You must admit though the whole nutrition/spiritual-enlightenment/body-worship/miracle-food/demon-food thing has gone off the deep end with no end in sight t

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