Tuesday, August 02, 2016

Why Does @HealthCanada Allow Chocolate Syrup To Be Enriched With Iron?

I took this photo at my local supermarket a few weeks ago.

It's a rather mind boggling product.

As is evidenced by the photo up above (and by common sense) this "iron enriched" Nesquik is meant to be added to a glass of milk.

So what's my issue?

Firstly a glass of milk, by way of both its casein and its 300 or so mg of calcium impairs iron absorption so what's added isn't the iron your body will be getting by a long shot.

Second it's vitamin fortified chocolate syrup with a front-of-package designed to infer good-for-you-ness.

That Health Canada allows a product designed to be added to milk to be enriched with iron is bizarre.

That Health Canada allows the enrichment of candy with vitamins, and then allows that vitamin enriched candy to be marketed as healthy, is just plain wrong.