| Food and beverage companies have increasingly been removing certain ingredients from their products as a result of perceived consumer demand (and a fair amount of applied pressure from consumer groups), including synthetic colorings, high fructose corn syrup, MSG and additives.
Some manufacturers are reformulating to remove potential allergens such as gluten as a recent report from Packaged Facts said that along with increased diagnosis of celiac disease, there has also been a surge in the number of consumers choosing gluten free foods for "perceived" health benefits.
Chief information officer at FoodEssentials.com, Dheeraj Patri, says:
"Our goal is not about telling people what food is good or bad but to provide transparency about what is in your food regardless of manufacturer."
The company uses food analysts and nutritionists to record and define ingredients and nutrients, and its data processors are also given training by in-house nutritionists and research analysts.
But Patri also said, candidly, that what makes the site different from other databases is that FoodEssentials.com researches ingredients rather than just nutritional information:
"If a new product is released and we don't know what an ingredient is, we will research it and find out...Manufacturers can be a little more devious in America because they use different names for the same ingredients, so as a consumer, it's difficult to know what's a stabilizer, what's an emulsifier and so on."
This is particularly important for those with food allergies, as many minor food ingredients may still contain trace amounts of allergens. Gluten is one of those ingredients that is of particular interest to millions of consumers at the moment. Consumers can't possibly know what all the thousands of different ingredients are, or all of their different names. This database tells you - this is a preservative, this potentially contains gluten or peanuts or colorants, etc - even beyond the manufacturer's claim. That is transparency.
This has the potential to change purchasing behavior as well as the way foods are labeled and formulated. I certainly hope it becomes a mediation point between manufacturers, retailers, government groups and consumers.
The other development, headed by the US Department of Agriculture's (USDA) Nutrient Data Laboratory (NDL) and the Office of Dietary Supplements (ODS) at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the first release of the database - DSID-1 - includes estimates of 18 nutrients in adult multivitamins and minerals, established through chemical analysis of products in the market.
According to USDA, the DSIS will be:
"critical in assessing the total intake of nutrients and other components from foods and supplements for their impact on public health".
The information will ultimately be used to assist in evaluating data and health interrelationships.
Representatives from NIH and USDA will be introducing the database to industry at the SupplySide East trade show in Secaucus, New Jersey, in April. Results of a nationwide analytically-based adult multivitamin/mineral research study will also be presented, with a view of its research applications in the DSID-1.
In parallel, the National Library of Medicine's Dietary Supplements Label Database has been established to provide information about ingredients in over 3,000 supplement brands.
Based on the Dietary Supplements On-Line Database (DSOL), it is designed to help researchers and consumers by consolidating information on products in order to allow for informed decisions about supplements.
The information is derived from a range of sources, including product-specific labels and information from manufacturers websites. Other resources will include lists of FDA warnings and recalls. Food safety is moving in the right direction, baby steps still, but something is being done. China, take note! |
