Food additives and contaminants continue...

Pesticides and consumer protection

Food law is very clear on the subject of the excessive use of pesticides and penalties for side-stepping the regulations are such that it pays growers to adhere closely to the letter of the law. Most pesticides may not be sprayed over food crops within stipulated times of harvesting (which vary according to the type of pesticide) and

this aspect is particularly strictly monitored by the Departments of Health and Agriculture.

It is perhaps worth mentioning that it is in any case not in growers' interests to use excessive amounts of pesticides on their crops, purely from an economic point of view, since agricultural chemicals are extremely expensive. Nor is it worth a grower's while to risk his reputation - and his livelihood - by careless practices which can easily

be detected.

`Preventing contamination'

The use of pesticides is only one area of food production where the problem of contamination has to be guarded against. In fact, a host of measures are enforced to prevent the poisoning of food by microorganisms. A good example is the law that forbids fresh meat and processed ready-to-eat meat products to be sold side by side, as fresh meat is highly contaminated by bacteria. These are of course destroyed when the meat is cooked, but can in the meantime contaminate the processed product. A case in point was the well- publicised outbreak of salmonella poisoning in North Wales in July 1989 which was traced, according to the press, to a shop selling both fresh and cooked meats. About three hundred cases resulted, with

three deaths.

Likewise, it is against the law to sell a 'blown' can since it could contain the deadly toxin, clostridium botulinum.

Health inspectors visit all food manufacturers and retail food outlets on a regular basis; samples of products are passed on to government laboratories where they are analysed; anyone found to be contravening the health regulations is taken to court. A case in point is the `boerewors scandal' of a couple of years ago which highlighted the use of prohibited animal off cuts in the production of this traditional sausage; the culprits were brought to book and fined heavily.

It should be added that a good deal of 'informal' policing also takes place amongst food producers themselves, who are always on the lookout for malpractices by their competitors in the marketplace! While this should in no way be regarded as a substitute for controlled monitoring, it undoubtedly contributes to consumer protection. One important regulation which is however flouted fairly often is the law stating that people who serve or handle unwrapped food behind shop counters must always wear either plastic or rubber gloves while doing so. (They are in fact required to wear hair nets as well.) Since the hygienic aspects of foodhandling are extremely important, consumers should make a practice of reporting sloppiness in this area, either to store managers or to their local Department of Health.

The sweetener scare

The heart of the problem of food additive legislation is how tointerpret data which gives results that do not translate simply into an immediate threat to public health. A prime example of this is the controversy that erupted over the compounds used in artificial sweeteners, both in the USA and in this country.

Artificial sweeteners have recently come under considerable scrutiny in this country. This follows widely publicized research in the USA after the cyclamate scare in 1970, when the Food and Drug Administration banned this compound due to the fact that laboratory tests on rats which had consumed huge amounts of cyclamate indicated that it may be carcinogenic. Then in 1977, saccharin came under suspicion when the FDA questioned the safety of that compound. The concern resulted from the restrictions imposed by the Delaney Clause (see above) and the hysterical public response it provoked is still causing repercussions today.

However, as it turned out, the quantities eaten by the rats were so high that they probably would have died of obesity long before if they had taken a comparative amount of sweetener in the form of sugar - meaning in effect that valid assumptions could not be made from this data. It should therefore be stressed that there is no evidence that, taken in reasonable quantities, any artifical sweetener is harmful to human health.

In this country the law with regard to artifical sweeteners states that any of some twenty permitted compounds may be used in food products separately or together, but that the name of the sweetener must be given, followed by wording stating that the compound is an artificial sweetener. Next to this, the producer must state whether or not sugar has been added as well. Certain sweeteners provide small amounts of kilojoules and the Foodstuffs, Cosmetics and Disinfectants Act states that this must be indicated on the label as follows: . no
permitted sweetener shall be described as low energy', 'low kilojoule', 'non-nutritive', 'artificial' or words with a similar meaning, unless the energy value of the equivalent of 1 teaspoonful of sucrose is not more than 5kJ'.

Labelling - 'preventing deception and fraud' continue...

Labelling and current legislation

At present under South African food law, certain terms are already ⁴prohibited. For example, no foodstuff may be labelled with the words 'recommended by doctors' or 'medically recommended' or imply the same; nor may the words 'health', 'healthy', 'heal', 'cure' or 'restorative' be used, implying that the food has health-giving properties.

The law also requires food producers to list ingredients in order of the _quantities in which they are present in a product. Hence, a product labelled as containing 'meat and soya' in that order would have more meat than soya. Nutritional content is not required by law, but if a producer wishes to state this on a package, it must be headed 'Nutritional Information'. The producer must indicate what percentage of the RDA (Recommended Daily Allowance) of the specific nutrient is present per serving and the order in which the nutrients are listed is stipulated. There must also be an indication of the energy content of the food to the nearest kilojoule per serving. Even the word 'serving' is prescribed by the legislation and 'means the mass, volume or number, as the case may be, which is recommended by the manufacturer as the amount to be taken on its own or as part of a meal ...'.

Perhaps this is where some consumers may have a difference of opinion with the manufacturers: the consumer sees the purchase as a meal, whereas the manufacturer regards it 'as part of a meal'. Either that or there are a lot of not-so-hungry manufacturers out there!

By law, the weight or volume of all packaged foods has to be stated on the package and this must refer to the actual usable quantity of food; for example, a 250 g pack of teabags must literally contain 250 g of tealeaves when weighed without the individual bags or box in which they are packaged. Another example of this type of legislation is applicable to eggs, which are graded and labelled according to strictly controlled weight regulations.

'Negative' claims

It is generally accepted that a manufacturer may extol the virtues of his product or the method of its manufacture, provided that the information given can be justified. However, any claim that denounces food ingredients, whether outright or by innuendo, deserves intense scrutiny. Over the last few years, some irresponsible promotional campaigns have stated or implied that foods containing certain permitted additives are less wholesome, less safe or less healthy than those without these additives. Conversely, it has been stated or implied that foods without certain permitted additives are more wholesome and safer, or healthier, than those with additives.

Admittedly, it is sometimes important to draw the consumers' attention to the fact that a foodstuff does not contain a substance, particularly if this fact could change the consumer's attitude to the product. For example, canned foods generally do not contain preservatives; evaporated milk does not contain added sugar (sucrose), yet in both cases, many people believe that they do. Because of the trend towards 'naturalness', more and more consumers are opting for additive-free foods and so of course manufacturers want to let the buying public know if their products conform to this 'ideal' - that's simply good marketing and the words 'contains no preservatives or additives' on a label don't necessarily imply that a product is any better than one with additives.

Then there are those ambiguous expressions, 'sugar free' and `no sugar added'. What most people don't realise is that the 'sugar' referred to here is sucrose (cane sugar) and that these products may well contain other types of 'natural' sugar - for example the milk sugar, lactose, present in an ingredient such as skim milk powder. These and similar expressions should only be used if the information is followed closely by an equally clear statement indicating which sugars are present or have been added to the food.