The following is from the Health Sciences Institutes (HSI) daily e-Alert (UK Edition, 30 March 2012).
It highlights how out of control our governments are. They are tools to be used and abused by Big Business, especially Big Pharma. The madness has now got to a point that you cannot make health claims about fresh fruit & veg because they have not been classified as 'drugs'. Yes, you read that right! But, as the e-Alert shows, you can make health claims about liquid margarine & crisps...
This utter insanity needs to be stopped! Big Business/Big Pharma need to be reeled in because the consequences are too dire to contemplate if they aren't brought to heel.
Here is the HSI e-Alert:
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Fresh Fruit And Veg Could Be Unapproved Drugs
In The Near Future
Dear Reader, Things are starting to get a bit stir crazy... Here in the UK and European Union (EU), the European Parliament is about to pass a law that will see all supplements and alternative remedies with un-approved health claims disappear from health food store shelves within 6 months... especially if they are added to the EU's register of rejected claims.
Crazy isn't it?
Yet, concoctions like Flora Cuisine — the liquid margarine-buttery-looking cooking oil is allowed to make the health claim that it can provide better frying, roasting and cooking for heart health!
Anyone with a bit of common sense will tell you that the relentless global campaign against alternative medicine is simply ridiculous... not to mention the clampdown on ordinary food products!
Across the pond
Now this is not meant to be a trick question, but I'm going to ask it anyway:
Are cherries unapproved drugs?
See, cherries contain antioxidants and other anti-inflammatory components. The scientific evidence behind that statement is irrefutable. But when owners of cherry orchards made antioxidant and anti-inflammatory claims and backed them up with evidence, the American Food and Drug Administration (FDA) ruled that the claims "cause your products to be drugs."
So the trick answer to the trick question (in FDA country) is: Yes — cherries are drugs that, so far, have no FDA approval.
So, clearly the craziness has crossed the pond into the US!
Just getting started
This madness doesn't end there. Recently, Dannon settled a dispute with the FDA by paying out $21 million to several states where the company had advertised Activia yoghurt, saying it can, "help regulate your digestive system...naturally."
That claim is based on what we know about the benefits of living cultures in probiotics.
But the FDA decided that Dannon was actually claiming that "Activia provided consumers with bowel movements at fixed, uniform or normal intervals." Clearly, that was not the case, but the agency's absurd decision ended up costing Dannon millions.
And FDA officials were just as picky and difficult when it came to walnuts.
They told a walnut distributer that multiple studies showing the heart health benefits of walnuts were not sufficient to allow such claims on the distributer's website. Again, the FDA ruled that the health claims classified walnuts as drugs.
Now... if all that seems completely bat-house crazy, brace yourself because here's what the FDA allows the king of US snack foods, Frito-Lay, to say about their products...
"You might be surprised at how much good stuff goes into your favourite snack. Good stuff like potatoes, which naturally contain vitamin C and essential minerals. Or corn, one of the world's most popular grains, packed with thiamin, vitamin B6, and phosphorous — all necessary for healthy bones, teeth, nerves and muscles."
Let me get this right: You CAN tell consumers that FRITOS CRISPS help keep bones and muscles healthy, but you CAN'T say cherries are packed with antioxidants that benefit health...
A 2011 Harvard study found that the following three food items top the list for contributing to yearly weight-gain spikes:
* Potato chips
* Potatoes (any type of serving)
* Sugar-sweetened beverages
These rules, regulations and crazy laws are absolute lunacy!
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