POSTED AT 2:46 AM EDT Friday, June 15

Food labels to carry disease-fighting claims

By DANIEL LEBLANC
From Friday's Globe and Mail


Ottawa — Food producers will soon be able to label and advertise their products in Canada as helpful in the fight against specific illnesses, such as heart disease, osteoporosis, tooth decay, high-blood pressure and some types of cancers.

Such advertising has been legal in the United States since the mid-1990s, and it will be allowed in Canada as part of a revamping of the country's food labelling rules. Nutrition experts and food manufacturers are applauding the move, but also warn that consumers will need to be educated on complicated nutritional information if they are to benefit from the changes.

Anne Kennedy, president of the National Institute of Nutrition, said that health claims can "oversimplify the complexity of disease" if they are not well explained. "The label is only as good as the way people use it."

Consumers are craving such information, and manufacturers will probably improve the nutritional content of their products as a result, Health Minister Allan Rock said in an interview.

"There is some theory that the manufacturers [in the United States] have changed their products in order to be able to advertise that they have more of this or more of that," he said.

The new labelling regulations, which will be announced Friday, will force producers to adopt a standard 13-nutrient fact box on most products, replacing the hodgepodge of information currently in use.

Consumers should be able to make more informed choices in stores with the help of the labels, which will be based on comparable quantities of the product and state what percentage of the daily recommended intake of a nutrient each contains.

The U.S. government already allows producers to make 10 health claims on products that meet specific requirements, but Ottawa will allow only five health claims to be made for now.
•Products that will be labelled as beneficial for high blood pressure will have to be low in sodium and high in potassium;
•To claim to help prevent osteoporosis, the products will need to contain adequate levels of calcium and vitamin D;
•To claim to prevent some types of cancer, they will need to be rich in fruits and vegetables;
•To claim to fight heart disease, they will need to be low in saturated and trans fat;
•To be marketed as tooth friendly, the products will need to be low in sugar alcohols.

It is not clear how the changes would be regulated. Mr. Rock said further testing could eventually lead to additional health claims.

"There may be others, so long as we can be satisfied that the claims are founded in fact and science, and aren't just fabricated," he said.

In a statement, the country's food manufacturers said that Canadians now can make healthier purchases.

The Food and Consumer Products Manufacturers of Canada said the new rules will "provide a significant benefit to Canadians including promoting health and allowing consumers to make more informed food choices."

Health Canada will officially announce draft regulations on the food labelling and advertising Friday. It will engage in consultations over a 90-day period, and then release final regulations that will be implemented over a two-year period in the case of large food producers, and a three-year period for smaller ones.

There will be exemptions for restaurants and products like fresh fruits and vegetables, coffee beans and bakery items.

The government is also promising to restrict the use of marketing expressions such as "light" or "low," in favour of defining specifically what they mean in relation to items such as sodium or fat.

Current regulations require only a list of ingredients. Many food products on grocery store shelves already have nutritional labels, but they are voluntary and vary from company to company.

http://www.globeandmail.com/servlet...me=breakingnews