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Previous: Scramble pads | Main | Next: Amazon.com shopping cart
November 12, 2004 12:01 AM
Broken: Perrier "Sodium Free" label
Peter J. Farrell writes:
Take a closer look at the Sodium content (2.3 mg/200 ml) on this Perrier label, and the notice of it being "Sodium Free". Since when in something "Sodium Free" and still contain sodium? I scanned this into my computer after soaking the label off the glass bottle.
This is pretty standard. Not broken in the least.
Would you be upset if your salt had a label that said "free of radioactive elements"? That'd be false.
Would you be upset if your candy bar said "contains no uranium"? That too would be technically false.
How about if your applesauce said "this product does not contain the neurotoxin arsenic" ... you can bet that's false!
The FDA is quite justified in allowing food manufacturers to define "free" as "some amount less than epsilon".
First it states that it contains Sodium then it states "Sodium Free".
Well. I for one would be upset if it stated:
Radioactive elements.......2.3mg / 200ml
and then a follow up saying it was free of radioactive elements.
On the other hand, maybe its comes FREE with the purchase. :)
That would be a plus....unless I payed for the bottle...Oh well.
Daniel, the flaw in your argument is that those products you mentioned do not have labels that specifically say "No radioactive elements inside". I understand the concept that if the sodium is low enough, they can legally say "Sodium free", but it's still a misleading statement. Perhaps it is not necessarily the words on the bottle that are broken, but the laws that allow such statements to be made that obviously aren't true.
The idea, though, is that some people are trying to buy products which conform to a low sodium diet; other people are trying to buy products which conform to a sodium-free diet.
This product -- despite the fact that it technically contains sodium -- contains /such/ a low amount of sodium that it is an acceptable product for a person on a sodium-free diet.
Hey, I thought it was pretty weird. This whole debate is getting pretty stupid anyways. I mean, who wants to argue over a water bottle? Heh...
It's definitely in the legal definition. I remember back in the '80s there was a minor flap when a company wanted to market "All Natural Ketchup"--except that their all natural ketchup was actually made with all natural ingredients. The government could have none of that, because the legal definition of ketchup included refined sugar, a manufactured ingredient. Because the "All Natural Ketchup" used natural honey for sweetening instead of refined sugar, the gummint insisted that it be labeled as "artificial ketchup" even though it was less artificial and more natural than regular ketchup.
The best part is the company's solution: They marketed "Genuine All Natural Artificial Ketchup." As long as the word 'artificial' appeared, the government was happy.
Sodium Free is a definition provided by the American Heart Association. Products with fewer than 5mg of sodium per serving qualify for this label.
Concurrence. 'Sodium free' is a label, not literal.
Those serious about their diet won't make thqat mistake. Dieters should not be lazy, taking their cues from the front of the box - labels aren't wrong, merely simplistic. Education and scrutiny is vital.
Silly. Of course when they said that there was none, they meant "well, er, actually there is a bit, just a small bit really".
I think what's broken here is the fact that the offending statements are, what, half a centimeter away from each other? Personally I find it hysterical.
Maybe our minds are broken?
So isn't the FDA definition broken? Perhaps I could market low-sodium salt in 5mg serving sizes. By According to FDA regulations my regular table salt would be "sodium free', but actually would contain the exact same ammount of sodium as other salt.
It is, therefor, not the label that is broken, but it is the loophole in the FDA regulations allowing food items containing sodium to be labeled "sodium free". While it may not be significant in this case it is a pointed comment on the regulation.
Bakkster: that's what they do for PAM cooking spray, except using fat instead of sodium. The spray is basically pure fat, but since a serving is defined as a 1/3 second spray (0.266g), it's below the 0.5g per "serving" threshold....
See http://www.scientificpsychic.com/fitness/labels.html for this and more examples.
I just looked at a box of mints my wife purchased at Ikea. The mints are calorie free and each mint contains only 3 calories. Go figure.
I must admit I sent this one in, but didn't research it. Even according to the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, if it contains
Plus, the rule state it the sodium content must be below 5mg per serving of a product. For instance, what if my "product" was 4.5mg of sodium per serving and my serving size was 5mg. I could stil label it sodium-free even though each serving is 90% sodium. I understand that a 5mg serving is very very small, but things should be more absolute.
.pjf
C'mon, that puppy is broke.
Unless of course, as previously mentioned, they meant there was no additional charge for the sodium that is, in fact, in there. (Hilarious, Marcus!)
Alternatively, considering the placement, perhaps they were suggesting their Potassium is 100% free of Sodium - "Now with sodium-free potassium! Send money! Buy today!"...
:P
JMZ
The problem is the definition of "sodium free" makes sense when it's applied to food. It's nuts when applied to water but there's no separate category so the food definition is used.
Without salt we would all die in about a month. What is broken is beliefs about the dangers of sodium - yes high blood pressure is dangerous, and yes, a huge amount of salt in your diet can temporarily raise your blood pressure, but there is no direct correlation between salt intake and heart disease, it is false correlation - it is all the sitting around worrying about salt causing the heart disease!
I GRADUATED N.Y.U AAS IN SOCIAL SCIENCE AND I AM AT THIS VERY MOMENT COMPLEATING MY
INVESTIGATION: H E - ( HALITE EARTH ) ; AND
I HAVE BEEN DRINKING A GREAT DEAL OF PERRIER WATER ( MY BROTHER SWORE THEIR WAS NO SALT IN IT AND I TOLD HIM I TASTED SOMETHING THAT DEFINATELY TASTED LIKE SALT BUT I RULED IT OUT TO MINERALS ALTHOUGH THAT WOULD STILL MEAN HALITE WHICH IS A MINERAL, CHEMICAL,
ATOM, METAL AND CRYSTAL AND WHICH COULD CAUSE CANCER ,A HEART ATTACK ,LUNG CANCER, I.B.D., AND ACID REFLUX AMONG WORSE THINGS AS AIDS AND DIABETIES . ITS ALL IN MY BLOCKBUSTER
MEGA DISCOVERY WHEIR HALITE OR SODIUM HAS BEEN IN HUMAN NUTRITION TO OUR DETRIMENT FOR OVER 24,000 THOUSAND YEARS.13407792810 (CLASS ACTION SUIT IS THE WAY TO GO LETS FILE IN USVI. KEVIN JENNINGS POB 4893 00802 USVI
I GRADUATED N.Y.U AAS IN SOCIAL SCIENCE AND I AM AT THIS VERY MOMENT COMPLEATING MY
INVESTIGATION: H E - ( HALITE EARTH ) ; AND
I HAVE BEEN DRINKING A GREAT DEAL OF PERRIER WATER ( MY BROTHER SWORE THEIR WAS NO SALT IN IT AND I TOLD HIM I TASTED SOMETHING THAT DEFINATELY TASTED LIKE SALT BUT I RULED IT OUT TO MINERALS ALTHOUGH THAT WOULD STILL MEAN HALITE WHICH IS A MINERAL, CHEMICAL,
ATOM, METAL AND CRYSTAL AND WHICH COULD CAUSE CANCER ,A HEART ATTACK ,LUNG CANCER, I.B.D., AND ACID REFLUX AMONG WORSE THINGS AS AIDS AND DIABETIES . ITS ALL IN MY BLOCKBUSTER
MEGA DISCOVERY WHEIR HALITE OR SODIUM HAS BEEN IN HUMAN NUTRITION TO OUR DETRIMENT FOR OVER 24,000 THOUSAND YEARS.13407792810 (CLASS ACTION SUIT IS THE WAY TO GO LETS FILE IN USVI. KEVIN JENNINGS POB 4893 00802 USVI
I GRADUATED N.Y.U AAS IN SOCIAL SCIENCE AND I AM AT THIS VERY MOMENT COMPLEATING MY
INVESTIGATION: H E - ( HALITE EARTH ) ; AND
I HAVE BEEN DRINKING A GREAT DEAL OF PERRIER WATER ( MY BROTHER SWORE THEIR WAS NO SALT IN IT AND I TOLD HIM I TASTED SOMETHING THAT DEFINATELY TASTED LIKE SALT BUT I RULED IT OUT TO MINERALS ALTHOUGH THAT WOULD STILL MEAN HALITE WHICH IS A MINERAL, CHEMICAL,
ATOM, METAL AND CRYSTAL AND WHICH COULD CAUSE CANCER ,A HEART ATTACK ,LUNG CANCER, I.B.D., AND ACID REFLUX AMONG WORSE THINGS AS AIDS AND DIABETIES . ITS ALL IN MY BLOCKBUSTER
MEGA DISCOVERY WHEIR HALITE OR SODIUM HAS BEEN IN HUMAN NUTRITION TO OUR DETRIMENT FOR OVER 24,000 THOUSAND YEARS.13407792810 (CLASS ACTION SUIT IS THE WAY TO GO LETS FILE IN USVI. KEVIN JENNINGS POB 4893 00802 USVI
Don't know about the label, but THIS is definitely broken: the last comment is three times in a row. EXACTLY the same. On the same date. Apparently, mr. kevin jennings's comment thingy is broken!
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Previous: Scramble pads | Main | Next: Amazon.com shopping cart
In the US the FDA (I believe) sets standards for most claims that can be made on packaging, and they aren't quite absolute (i.e. "low fat" lies in a certain range and "no fat" lies in another, ranging up from actually having no fat). That might be similar to what's going on here. Or, it could just be some balls-out consumer fraud.
Posted by: Maurs at November 12, 2004 01:13 AM