Watch what you eat!

Sunita Narain introduces the first comprehensive Indian study to look at nutritional claims made (or not made) by junk food makers, and how they compare with the benchmarks for recommended daily intakes of salt, sugar, carbohydrates and fats issued by India’s National Institute of Nutrition and the World Health Organization.

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Indian processed foods.

Junk food is junk by its very definition. But how bad is it, and what are the companies that make it not telling people about this food? This is what the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) laboratory checked. The results were both predictable and alarming. What was equally predictable was the response of big food companies and their spokespeople – denials and dismissals.

First the study: the CSE tested all that is readily available in fast food outlets or as branded and packaged items in shops across the country. These ranged from instant noodles, chips and Indian bhujia, to the ubiquitous colas, chicken fries and burgers.

Junk food is defined as food with empty calories – it provides fat, sugar and salt, without nutrition. The CSE study reconfirmed this, but with a difference. Labels on packages do not explain just how much of our daily salt, sugar or fat quota this ‘fun’ food is using up. We are not told that one packet of chips, easily devoured, supplies half of the recommended daily intake in terms of fat and salt. Nor that one bottle of cola has twice the recommended daily added sugar allowance for adults and children. It is not in the interests of the food companies to advertize this. But it is in our interest to know.

The study also found that companies are not just irresponsible by omission, but also by deliberate misrepresentation of facts about the quantity of unsaturated fat with trans-isomer fatty acids – trans fats in short – in their products. Trans fats, formed during the hydrogenation of vegetable oil, are linked to serious health problems (particularly to an increased risk of coronary heart disease). However, in India, the law does not require companies to declare the quantity of trans fat in their products. What it does say is that a company can make a “health” claim that its food item is trans fat-free, provided that each serving contains less than 0.2 g.

Morgan Spurlock’s 2004 docudrama, Super Size Me, depicts an experiment he conducted in which he ate three McDonald’s meals a day every day (and nothing else) for 30 days. The end result, he claims, was a diet with twice the calories recommended by the US Department of Agriculture. By the end of the period, Spurlock had gained 25 pounds (11 kg), become quite puffy and suffered liver dysfunction and depression.

This regulation misses the mark because companies can determine the size of serving themselves, and they do. For example, the Indian food giant Haldiram’s takes 10 g,
which is less than a mouthful, as the serving size. That is how it claims to be ‘trans fats free’. Haldiram’s bhujia, PepsiCo’s Lays’ chips and ITC Food’s Bingo chips all contained trans fats, when they claimed otherwise. Companies can get away with this because nobody is checking.

Take the case of PepsiCo. It went on an advertising spree, saying its potato chips were healthy because they did not have trans fat and were cooked in rice bran oil. Film star, Saif Ali Khan, was its brand ambassador, urging children and adults to eat without guilt and to feel carefree. The chips were branded ‘snack-smart’, implying their goodness. Then PepsiCo decided that these chips were heavy on its pocket. So, it changed the means of cooking, and then removed the ‘snack-smart’ logo
and the declaration of zero-trans fats from the packets. But, this time, it did not launch an advertising campaign.

The CSE study found the company has added insult to injury. First, even what was claimed to be trans fats-free had 0.9 g per 100 g. Second, packets of chips manufactured in February 2012 had the dangerously high trans fats levels of 3.7 g per 100 g – much more than the recommended daily intake. But under India’s weak food regulations, they did not have to tell people what was in the packet. It is no surprise then that PepsiCo, in its official rebuttal of the CSE study, said, “All products are fully compliant with regulations, including those on labeling.” Clearly, food companies are not in the business of food, but in the business of profit.

Following the CSE tests, two questions were raised. One, why test junk food when it is already known to be bad? Two, why test only packaged food, when all Indian
snacks are said to be equally bad? First, as the study shows, we do not know just how bad this food really is. We should know more, because it is critical that we take informed decisions about our health. Non-communicable diseases – from hyper-tension to cancer – are a global epidemic. Bad food and bad lifestyle are major causes of these diseases. Indians are especially vulnerable when it comes to diabetes; as compared to Caucasians, they are genetically disposed to have more fat than muscle and have a greater propensity to put on fat around the abdomen. They are also too poor to cope with the horrendous health costs of debilitating diseases, like diabetes. Therefore, Indian food regulations have to be even more stringent in limiting quantities of salt, sugar and fat in food.

Secondly, regarding food other than junk food, it must be made clear that traditional and local diets are built on the principles of moderation and balance. The traditional Indian diet, with its diversity of regional cuisines, celebrates good food. The problem arises when we “McDonaldize” it or “supersize” junk food. The right thing to do is not to pit junk food against Indian snacks, but to consider how much and what we eat.

● Sunita Narain is director of the New Delhi-based Centre for Science and Environment and editor of the fortnightly magazine, Down To Earth.

The Centre for Science and Environment report, Eat at your own risk, was published in April 2012.