The GMA, looking out for you!

The call from the Center for Science in the Public Interest for the Food and Drug Administration to ban eight artificial food colorings over alleged links to behavioral problems in kids - substances with such appetizing names as Yellow 5, Red 40, and Orange B - has elicited the expected pushback from a hostile Grocery Manufacturers Association:

There is no need for consumers to alter their purchasing and eating habits and they and their children can safely enjoy food products containing these food colors.

The GMA can always be counted on to defend the use of ingredients that aren’t actually necessary in a diet but help pad the bottom line of food manufacturers. Note the consortium’s rear-guard action against merely providing consumers information about nutritionally unnecessary but economically useful trans fats:

In comments submitted to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) yesterday, the Grocery Manufacturers of America (GMA) opposed the addition of a footnote statement to the Nutrition Fact box advising consumers to reduce their trans fat consumption as much as possible. The FDA’s proposed rule would require all nutrition labels containing trans fat information to bear the footnote statement, “Intake of trans fat should be as low as possible.” [...]

“Incorporated into the current Nutrition Facts panel, the FDA’s proposed footnote statement would lead consumers to believe that trans fat should be avoided entirely, while implying that saturated fat is safer for consumers,” said GMA Director of Scientific and Nutrition Policy Alison Kretser, MS, RD. “This is absolutely the wrong message to send to consumers.”

“A footnote statement on the Nutrition Facts panel is the inappropriate place to convey details about trans fat consumption,” added Kretser.

The FDA mandated labeling contains no such statement that saturated fats are safe, of course, and makes no such implication. It’s just a bit of zero-sum fear mongering by the GMA.

Ditto the association’s response to criticism of the use of nutritionally unnecessary but economically beneficial high-fructose corn syrup:

Says Stephanie Childs, a spokesperson for the Grocery Manufacturers Association: “At the end of the day, how any sweetener affects your weight depends on how many calories you are taking in overall. Overemphasizing one nutrient at the detriment of others is not going to solve the problem.”

Such is the GMA’s knee-jerk defense of the use of questionable ingredients. You get the feeling that if Dalai Lamanade was an actual product, the GMA would vigorously defend the use of monosodium poisonate.

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