Tuesday, July 15, 2014

The Crucial Question Regarding Canada's Nutrition Facts Panel Changes

Will fruit juices, evaporates, purées and concentrates be considered sources of added sugar? Health Canada doesn't consider them to be now, and there was no suggestion yesterday that there were any plans for change.

No doubt juices, evaporates, purées, and concentrates should all be considered sources of added sugars as ultimately that's what they are. Pulverize, extrude, concentrate, and/or evaporate fruit, and sugar is predominantly what you're left with. And if juices, evaporates, purées, and concentrates aren't formally considered added sugars by Health Canada, get ready for a huge increase in nonsensical food-like items with claims of "no sugar added" and "made with real fruit" to hit the shelves.

The corollary of that too of course is that existing such nonsensical food-like items will still be allowed to make their nonsensical, predatory claims.

[I do have other minor suggestions and issues with the proposals, but overall I have to say, assuming the above issue is handled properly, it's a big improvement over what we've got now. The other major concern I have is that there's not a value for a package's total calories - useful given many of us treat entire packages as serving sizes.]