Product claims: Common sense, education must prevail

As a 22-year-old who spends her fair share of time on the Internet and is employed in the food industry, I have come to notice a lack of knowledge the average consumer has about food. Indeed, I’ve noticed that consumers are in the dark about what some ingredients are, how things are processed, and which health claims actually hold value.

But is this gap in knowledge due to the secrecy that often comes with the food industry, or is it ignorance on both sides of the aisle, i.e., consumers think they shouldn’t have to take the time to understand how things are made and what different claims mean, while processors might not believe it is their responsibility to inform consumers? This gap causes a lot of confusion and misinformation to be spread.

One common problem that comes from this gap are consumers who get worked up over the ingredient lists and nutrition labels on so-called health foods. Labeling requirements as they are, these so-called health foods do contain quite a lengthy list of ingredients. Compounding matters, when companies utilize ingredients fortified with other ingredients, they must all be listed in order, creating long labels with ingredients that can sound mysterious or be difficult to pronounce.

Recently, I came across a tweet about a surprise finding in a box of cereal. The post was tweeted by a comedian who claimed to have found shrimp tails in his Cinnamon Toast Crunch.

Based on how cereal is produced and the assumption that General Mills’ quality-management strategies aren’t in question, I didn’t believe it. Furthermore, anyone who fell for it must not have thought through this very much. It had to be a joke, I thought.

Unfortunately, consumers who post social-media messages like this — maliciously or not — often have little idea the serious ramifications of their claims. Doing an entire recall for a social-media practical joke would be a nightmare! The fact that some consumers truly believed this comedian found shrimp tails in cereal, even for a second, is one scary thought. Because of a select few consumers who didn’t do their own research and/or use common sense, General Mills had to expend effort to manage a phony crisis.

Even with external groups creating misleading claims about products, it doesn’t mean processors aren’t always innocent of making unsubstantiated claims. It amazes me the product claims a processor can make that have little backing or value, even. I have friends who have been misled as to what a “healthy” product is because of many of these nonsense claims, and such labels have become a pet peeve of mine. The most annoying claim so far has been the term “natural.”

For meat and poultry products to be labeled “natural,” the USDA states they must be minimally processed and contain no added artificial ingredients. If that wasn’t vague enough for you, for other foods, the term has no clear meaning and is not even regulated by a government agency! Because of that wide-reaching definition, there’s no perfect way for science to even show that “natural” products are better for you (or not). Thus, they are marketing tactics processors use to convince consumers they are being healthy, a deception that increases the knowledge gap and mistrust the average consumer has with the food processing industry.

All is not lost, however. There are TikTok, Facebook, YouTube users who are bringing the science of food production to the forefront for those consumers who will listen. Although I believe it is the consumer’s duty to be more in the know about food processing, as a food industry employee, I feel a sense of responsibility to debunk some of these myths and add transparency wherever possible. Do you feel the same about educating your consumers? Maybe you should …

— Sam Bibbs, Food Safety Consultant, sam@werfoodsafety.com