Here’s an article from Food and Wine that simply gives more of the bad news that I thought I was avoiding by reading “regular stuff.” Click on the screenshot to read it. The upshot is that foods—and not just OJ—are going to be diluted and their quality reduced, all supposedly in the name of consumer welfare. Yes, I know that government agencies are doing a ;pt worse stuff, but anybody who beefs that this post is trivial compared to that other stuff risks dire punishment, for I post what I want.
As you probably know if you’re American, the Food and Drug administration sets standards for how food is constituted if it’s going to be labeled one way or another. For example, the standards of “ice cream” specify that it has to have a certain percentage of milk solids and milk fat. That’s why, before I buy ice cream in a store, I inspect the carton to be sure that it’s labeled “ice cream” rather than “ice milk” or, Ceiling Cat help me, “frozen dairy dessert”. (This is, of course, independent of the ever-shrinking volume of containers, like the half gallons of ice cream that have morphed into 1.5 quarts.) So check what’s written on your carton of Breyer’s to ensure that you’re buying ice cream.
Now the FDA is changing the standards for other foods, and of course not for the better. Quotes from the article (indented):
As Food & Wine previously explained, the FDA began setting standards of identity in 1939 to promote “honesty and fair dealing” and ensure the “characteristics, ingredients, and production processes of specific foods were consistent with what consumers expect.”
Back then, the FDA added, companies often sold products “that were represented as jams containing fruit, but the products contained little fruit,” so it established baseline rules for certain foods to be labeled as such. For example, the Oregon Growers explained that “preserves” and “jams” must contain at least “55% sugar and 45% fruit. If a product does not meet these requirements, it must be called by another name.”
With this new update, jam makers may no longer be required to adhere to these percentages if their standard of identity were to go away, meaning your next jar could be more sugar, water, or some other ingredient entirely than mostly fruit.
Be sure to start inspecting your jams. However, looking at a few of mine, they don’t list the percentage of fruit versus sugar: they just give the ingredients in order of predominance, and sugar is first, even in good jams. But how much sugar are you spreading on your toast? The FDA will ensure that it can increase without your knowing. You’d have to write to the manufacturer to find out.
As for orange juice, well, that’s gonna be diluted:
On Aug. 5, the FDA announced that it’s proposing to amend the standard of identity for pasteurized orange juice, which has been in place for six decades, in an effort “to promote honesty and fair dealing for consumers.” It added that the proposed rule change will “provide flexibility to the food industry.”
Why the change now? As the FDA explained, it’s in response to a petition by the Florida Citrus Processors Association and Florida Citrus Mutual, which is asking for the change, as the current standard of identity has a minimum Brix requirement, “a measurement that indicates the sugar content of a liquid,” at 10.5%. It wants to reduce this requirement to a flat 10%. That’s because the state of Florida has been ravaged by citrus greening disease, which has caused a lower crop production as well as fruit that has less sugar than before.
“The FDA’s pasteurized orange juice standard of identity, when originally promulgated in 1963, was carefully constructed to reflect the qualities of U.S. oranges,” the petition by the two organizations states. “It should now be updated to align with the properties of the modern U.S. crop. Without these changes, manufacturers of finished pasteurized orange juice products must increasingly rely on higher Brix imported juice to meet or exceed the U.S. minimum Brix for pasteurized orange juice.”
The FDA further explained that the change shouldn’t affect the taste of orange juice and will have “a minimal impact on the nutrients found in orange juice.”
What a load of bull! The way you reduce sugar, of course, is to add more water. “The qualities of U.S. oranges” have changed because of the disease and lower crop production. Granted, perhaps a half percent of lower sugar may even be better for some people, but those standards were there in the first place. And you can bet your tuchas that when the disease goes away and they can once again make OJ to the specificiations, they’re not going to go back to the old standards. But wait! There’s more!
Other foods that may have their standards of identity change soon include several types of canned fruits and vegetables, including artificially sweetened canned fruits (apricots, cherries, pears, peaches, pineapples) and select canned vegetables, such as field corn and dry peas. More than a dozen dairy products are included in the list, including low‑sodium cheddar and colby cheeses, along with cream cheese blends, and frozen desserts like goat milk ice cream and mellorine. Milk breads, rolls, and buns are also on the list, as are enriched macaroni and frozen juice concentrates.
Now I don’t know what the changes are, but you can be sure that they are not going to increase the quality of the product. What are they going to do to breads and macaroni? The mind boggles. The only worse thing that this reduction of food quality is the way they justify it. There’s a quote in the article that apparently comes from the FDA:
“The FDA’s Standards of Identity efforts have helped ensure uniformity, boost consumer confidence, and prevent food fraud. But many of these standards have outlived their usefulness and may even stifle innovation in making food easier to produce or providing consumers healthier choices,” FDA Commissioner Marty Makary added in the July press release. “Antiquated food standards are no longer serving to protect consumers. It is common sense to revoke them and move to a more judicious use of food standards and agency resources.”
Stifling innovation? Giving consumers healthier choices? “Antiquated standards”? Excuse me, but I’d rather have more fruit in my preserves. This paragraph is a prime example of duplicity masquerading as good intentions.
You can find the new FDA standards here and here, which, I suppose, are driven not by consumer demand but by corporations, and if you want to go through them, see if the changes conform to the explanation above.
Oy! My kishkes!
I’d worry more about the number of maggots that USA food standards allow in that orange juice.
We learned a lot about US food ‘standards’ during Brexit when there was talk of a trade deal with the USA that would mean us lowering our standards to those of the USA. You allow all sorts of horrors in your food that wouldn’t be tolerated here, and your food labeling system is lax, so you can’t always tell what the ingredients are.
If a company was found to have rat faeces in their products here it would be prosecuted, but the USA allows some contamination.
“For example, US producers are allowed to include up to 30 insect fragments in a 100g jar of peanut butter; as well as 11 rodent hairs in a 25g container of paprika; or 3mg of mammalian excreta (typically rat or mouse excrement) per each pound of ginger.” [FDA Defect Levels Handbook]
In the EU there are no allowable limits for foreign bodies in food products.
It’s no surprise that the USA has far more food poisoning cases per capita than the UK.
There was also a furore about being forced to accept US chlorinated chicken, but thankfully I’m vegetarian.
Nothing the USA does to lower food quality will ever surprise me.
Damn that went south so fast, Joolz! One moment we’re considering sugar in OJ and ice cream and suddenly our food is infested with roach poo!
HAHHAA
Seriously though, reducing food standards is a big time GoP trick, forever now. Sadly.
There is the opposite extreme however: EU and crunchy hippies objecting to GMOs, when they’re utterly safe. Anti-GMO people piss me off nearly as much as anti-vaxers but as you know, I’m an intolerant guy!
An aside, in law school we learned that the entirety of products liability law comes from some weary traveler in the 18th century in New England…who stopped at an inn and was injured by broken glass in a pie he bought there. Sued. Won. From that genesis all products liability law, mass torts and environmental law, originated. Cool eh?
all the best,
D.A.
NYC
Sorry about that 😂 It just amazes me what food manufacturers can get away with over there. Not just food either. At the time of Brexit, I heard a podcast that said there are only a handful of ingredients banned from cosmetics over there, whereas here there are huge lists.
I have an allergy to para-phenylenediamine (PPD) and can be sure that no skin products use it here as it’s illegal for that and, when it is used in hair dye, it must be clearly mentioned on the label. I don’t think there’s any such ban or warning over there.
GMO doesn’t worry me as long as it’s been through the appropriate tests, but I object to terminator seeds. That is capitalism at its worst and it impacts on poorer farmers.
I didn’t know the source for those laws, it’s always interesting to learn new things. Cheers.
I am ambivalent about terminator seeds. They are sold primarily on the basis of increased yields, but so are F1 hybrids. The seeds from these cannot be used without a drop in yield, but I have never heard anyone complaining about this. Provided that the farmer knows what is on offer, I am not sure what the problem is.
Terminator seeds are sold primarily on the basis of making more money for rich people.
They are being used to exploit ordinary farmers in poor countries. For generations, farmers have saved seed to grow for the next year, but terminator seeds stop that and mean they will have to pay more money every single year for more seeds. This is ruining their traditional way of life and putting money in the pockets of the fat cats.
According to research, there will be a big socio-economic impact on the 1.4 billion people who depend on farm saved seeds for their food security and livelihoods. The attached link gives data about the extra money it will cost poor countries.
Personally I believe this is immoral. Rich corporations in the west don’t need to make millions more from poor people. We should be helping them and not exploiting them.
https://www.organicresearchcentre.com/manage/authincludes/article_uploads/terminator%20March%2006.pdf
In my senior capstone class, one thing I do is to have each student give a talk about a subject of interest to them. One student gave a talk about American food versus everywhere else, and the differences in the ingredient lists was shocking. These include a range of artificial colors and preservatives that are in our food which is largely banned elsewhere. Compare kiddie breakfast cereals and orange soda. Wow, is all I could say.
This is something that RFK Jr. should work on.
So true.
Sadly we are getting a lot of US-type breakfast cereals over here now. It’s setting a bad precedent for children who see it on tv and demand it. They aren’t as unhealthy, as they have to conform to UK standards, but they are certainly far worse than our usual breakfast cereals.
Porridge oats are healthy and ours are primarily rolled oats and maybe fruit, but the US product contains all sorts of unnecessary things like palm oil and food colouring. It’s the same company, so they could just make one product, but I think Americans may demand more sugar.
Google the UK vs US ingredients of many products and you’ll be shocked. Someone shared a bunch of comparisons on Reddit here:
https://www.reddit.com/r/interestingasfuck/comments/1fpe428/comparison_of_ingredient_differences_between/
I’ve got to say, Joolz, I’m sceptical of this. Not that the US has more lax food standards but that in the “EU there are no allowable limits for foreign bodies in food products.”
I just don’t believe that’s possible. I don’t care how carefully you wash that head of brocolli, you’re not getting rid of all “foreign bodies” from it. Some sound advice I once got from an undergraduate instructor; “never look at your salad under a microscope”.
Saying you aren’t allowed to have foreign objects in food doesn’t mean it never happens, of course, it just means that companies are under an obligation to maintain very high hygiene standards.
There have been some cases of contamination. The funniest one I remember, was a postcard that must have been dropped into bread dough and ended up being sliced along with the bread, so there was a piece of postcard in each slice. You sometimes see mould on a food item, but you just point this out to staff, and they deal with it.
Finding a caterpillar in your salad isn’t the same as having FDA approval to include rat faeces in it.
I can see your point and if you’re a happy consumer of the current formulations then I can see that these changes are threatening.
However I come out on the other side of this.
For one thing there has been a 40% reduction in consumption of OJ by Americans over the last two decades. It’s been dropping ~4%/year since at least the mid-2000s. I know hardly anyone who drinks OJ for breakfast anymore. (Gone the same way as cereal and toast.) I view it as liquid sugar myself and I suspect that’s the core of the issue. When I do get it I’m happy with the flavor. (I live in Florida so the grocery store has a bunch of super localized products outside of the usual national brands and they’re very flavorful.) But anything that allows the sugar content to be reduced seems like a good thing to me as I find it too sweet. I don’t see it as a good thing to force distributors to keep the sugar content boosted. At least I should have the choice to have a lower sugar content juice.
I’m not concerned about producers diluting as flavor is the essential purchasing factor. (I already think the main national brands have average to poor flavor anyway.)
In general I’d like to see fewer restrictions on products, providing everything is clearly labeled. Then let the consumer decide what products they like and want to buy. I think there’s a good case for ensuring products are safe, although even with that there is some overreach. There’s little scientific basis for the fuss over GMOs for example. (I think GMOs are mostly serving as a proxy for other issues such as pesticide use, monoculture, big corporations, capitalism anyway.)
And what about those pesky standards for minimal bridge overhead clearance on interstate highways; and track widths for interstate railroads….roll your own…don’t need no stinkin’ standards. The libertarians and trumpian crooks running wild will leave the US in a state of Brownian motion run wild that will make the 1920’s look like good government management.
Are complainants truly risking dire punishment or just some new and wonky concept of “dire”?
One area that I would approve of is to reduce the amount of sugar that is added to food. There is added sugar in damn near everything. And then there is all the artificial dyes. It is eye-opening to compare a bowl of Fruit Loops cereal from the US versus Europe.
Wasn’t that an RFK Jr thing? Healthier foods? I know he talked about getting food dyes out.
But these initiatives listed here sound 100% industry driven for cost savings.
That’s what I wondered too. Isn’t RFK a “get the crap out of food to make America healthy again” kinda guy? Letting the industry degrade food products would seem to go in the opposite direction. Color me confused.
He is mendacious and evil. If he could be on the cash receiving side of lawsuit settlements (like he is for vaccine lawsuits), I am sure he would very much give a damn.
They’re called Froot Loops for a very good reason.
[ sigh … ]
Don’t get me started!
But yeah – sugar – insulin resistance. A bad combination.
I appreciate your angst and join you in believing that the overall effect of changing FDA standards will be a less healthy America. On the other hand, Americans are already unhealthy compared to peer nations. Why? Because most Americans make too little effort to be healthy. One change might help: making healthy food companies fight harder for customers. For instance, I look forward to some bright (pun intended) orange juice maker exposing “the Florida fraud.” I’ll be looking for such a label.