{"id":2805,"date":"2016-03-29T14:17:48","date_gmt":"2016-03-29T08:47:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/newspie.in\/en\/?p=2805"},"modified":"2016-10-21T15:11:51","modified_gmt":"2016-10-21T09:41:51","slug":"nestle-ghee-breaking-labeling-rules","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newspie.in\/en\/2805-nestle-ghee-breaking-labeling-rules\/","title":{"rendered":"Is Nestl\u00e9 ghee breaking the labeling rules?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Nutrition labels and the rules that govern them are meant to help consumers make informed purchases. Yet\u00a0when it comes to one of the most basic ingredients of the Indian diet, ghee, or clarified butter, India's\u00a0labeling regulations\u00a0fall short of specifying what the public needs to know. Even then, one well known brand, Nestl\u00e9, may be violating the regulations, and at the very least is\u00a0failing to\u00a0live up to its own lofty goals\u00a0of keeping the public informed.<\/p>\n

Nutrition labels on packaged food\u00a0inform\u00a0consumers about what is inside.\u00a0Labeling rules specify the minimum set of data that must be displayed, and they create a standardized method of presenting information. This\u00a0helps people\u00a0make\u00a0sense of all the health and nutrition claims that brands make.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Ghee is nearly 100% fat, so in that sense the label on a package of ghee should be quite straightforward. However, edible fats can be further classified as saturated, unsaturated or hydrogenated, also known as trans\u00a0fat. Eating saturated fats increases<\/a>\u00a0the amount of cholesterol in the blood, which could lead<\/a> to heart disease and stroke. When a product is entirely composed of fat, it makes sense to provide the fat breakdown.<\/p>\n

In India, the regulations on labeling fat content\u00a0are\u00a0set out by the Food Safety Standards Authority of India<\/a> (FSSAI). The\u00a0current regulations, dating<\/a> from 2011,\u00a0only require the breakdown of the types of fat when a claim is made about the amount or types of fats in the product. Otherwise, the packaging\u00a0only needs to display\u00a0the total amount of fat. Yet many brands do display the fat breakdown. A review\u00a0of packaged ghee at a local supermarket in Gurgaon showed that six brands\u00a0mention the amount of saturated fat and cholesterol in their labels, and three, including Nestl\u00e9, do not.<\/p>\n

\"These
These six brands of packaged ghee provide the amount of saturated fat and cholesterol.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

When I contacted Nestl\u00e9 about why they do not provide the saturated fat information,\u00a0the company replied in an email, \"The labels for Nestl\u00e9 Ghee conform to labelling guidelines set out by FSSAI<\/span>.\" I also contacted Mother Dairy, another brand that does not provide the\u00a0fat breakdown, and I was provided a\u00a0statement via email, part of which read, \"Mother Dairy complies with applicable labeling requirements, including FSSAI. As per FSSAI Order dated 17 December \u201814, implementation timelines for declaring Trans Fat & Saturated Fat on label of Ghee is extended up to 31.12.2015 and we will follow the regulations accordingly.\"<\/p>\n

\"Three
Three brands of ghee available at a supermarket in Gurgaon do not provide details on types of fat or cholesterol.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In fact, in November 2012 the FSSAI proposed<\/a> a change to the rules\u00a0pertaining to\u00a0labels on edible oils and fats to require the amount of trans and saturated fats be shown. However, after implementing<\/a> the change in June 2013, the deadline for compliance has been postponed 4 times, from September 2013 to December 2013<\/a>, then to 1 July 2014<\/a>, then to 1 January 2015<\/a> and then\u00a0to the current deadline, 31 December<\/a>. The FSSAI gave no rationale or explanation for these extensions, but when I spoke to Sanjay Gupta, Assistant Director (Enforcement) and S. Anoop, Assistant Director (Enforcement II),\u00a0I was told, \"Everything takes time, changing detailing on the products produced will surely take a lot of time.\u00a0Respecting that, we have given an extension till 31st December 2015.\"<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Nestl\u00e9
Nestl\u00e9 states that Ghee helps meet dietary requirements, but doesn't mention that ghee is high in saturated fats and cholesterol.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Under the current regulation, packaging\u00a0that makes a nutrition or health claim\u00a0about a nutrient is required to provide the amounts of those nutrients. (Note:\u00a0it would seem then that\u00a0the Amul package, which claims it's ghee is a \"rich source of Vitamin A, D, E and K\" ought to display the values for the last 3 vitamins.)\u00a0On its ghee package, Nestl\u00e9 asks, \"Is it good to avoid fat?\" It then goes on to answer, \"It is not good to avoid fat. In a balanced diet, about 30% of body's energy requirement should be met by fat. Ghee helps in meeting this\u00a0requirement.\" I asked the FSSAI whether this could not be considered a nutrition or health claim. I was told that I would receive a response after an internal discussion at the FSSAI, but after 4\u00a0weeks\u00a0I received a response in which was referred back to the 2011 regulations.<\/p>\n

Even if the FSSAI will not say whether Nestl\u00e9 is violating the regulations, Nestl\u00e9 is contradicting its claims about helping consumers make healthy choices. In a promotional document on saturated fats, Nestl\u00e9\u00a0\u00a0states<\/a>, \"Reducing the content of saturated fat in food and beverages is recommended as a measure to help promote a healthy diet.\" Elsewhere on its Web site, Nestl\u00e9 \u00a0states,<\/a>\u00a0\"As consumers, we need to make wise choices about the food we eat. This is where food labels come in. It can help you make informed decisions towards choosing good nutrition and health.\" However, by not providing the amount of saturated fat in its ghee, Nestl\u00e9 is leaving consumers in the dark.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Nestl\u00e9 says that fats are essential to a “balanced” diet, but doesn’t say how much saturated fat or cholesterol is in Nestl\u00e9 ghee. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":3047,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[71,83],"tags":[161],"coauthors":[141],"class_list":["post-2805","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","category-government","tag-investigation"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newspie.in\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2805","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newspie.in\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newspie.in\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newspie.in\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newspie.in\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2805"}],"version-history":[{"count":26,"href":"https:\/\/newspie.in\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2805\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3796,"href":"https:\/\/newspie.in\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2805\/revisions\/3796"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newspie.in\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3047"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newspie.in\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2805"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newspie.in\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2805"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newspie.in\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2805"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newspie.in\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=2805"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}