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Show Product labels make informed consumers By DENNIS HINKAMP Consumer Information Writer Utah State University One of the greatest fights consumers con-sumers have taken up over the past 20 years is to get more information on table product labels. The reason is that a more informed public is less likely to get fooled and more likely to make healthful decisions in the supermarket. The problem has been label education. edu-cation. According to Food and Drug Administration (FDA) studies, stu-dies, many consumers still don't know how to use the information on the labels. Simple concepts such as "in what order are ingredients listed' were understood by less than half the respondents. The correct answer is that ingredients are listed from most to least by weight. Cholesterol is on the minds of most Americans, but only about one-third of those polled by the FDA correctly answered that it is found only in animal products. An even smaller percentage correctly cor-rectly responded that a "cholesterol-free" product could be either high or low in saturated fat. Some vegetable oils can be high in saturated satu-rated fat. Saturation and cholesterol cholester-ol levels are separate issues. Less than 20 percent of those polled knew that "hydrogenated" was related to fats and oils. This process increases the saturation levels in fats. Not all foods are required to list their ingredients, but most still do. Products such as ice cream and catsup cat-sup have standards of identity outlined out-lined by the FDA so they are not required to list ingredients. Any deviation from this standard would require the manufacturer to label the product "imitation" ice cream or catsup. This requirement brings about odd labels such as "imitation natural catsup" sometimes some-times found in health food stores. With the trend being toward more information on labels and more nutritional claims for certain foods, consumer confusion is likely like-ly to increase. Although most consumer advocates advo-cates agree that a more informed consumer is a wiser consumer, more research needs to be done on better methods of presenting this information. |