Cheerios, the quintessential American breakfast cereal, has been making some pretty tall claims on it’s boxes for the last two years and it looks like the long (and apparently slow) arms of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) have finally caught up with it.”You can lower your cholesterol 4% in 6 weeks” claims the big letters on the front of a Cheerios box. Elsewhere, on a website called WholeGrainNation (which is mentioned on a box of Cheerios) is the promise: “Heart-healthy diets rich in whole grain foods can reduce the risk of heart disease.” The FDA’s response: “Not so fast!”
You see, the problem is more with how this claim is presented on the box than of it’s even true or not (and I have my doubts!). In a formal “Warning Letter” published on its site, the FDA explains:
Based on claims made on your product’s label, we have determined that your Cheerios® Toasted Whole Grain Oat Cereal is promoted for conditions that cause it to be a drug because the product is intended for use in the prevention, mitigation, and treatment of disease. Specifically, your Cheerios® product bears the following claims on its label: “you can Lower Your Cholesterol 4% in 6 weeks” [FDA]
So essentially, because it claims to cure a disease, Cheerios is now behaving like a drug and as such cannot continue to market itself without a new drug application from the FDA! The entire fiasco is succinctly summed up by this comic :
Image From: VarvBlog by Gary Varvel
General Mills, the makers of Cheerios, for their part are coming out with their defense saying that their “soluble fiber health claim” has been FDA approved for almost 12 years and this current situation probably as more to do with how this claim is presented than the claim itself. Their main homepage now has the following message:
While this issue will probably be resolved once General Mills changes something minor like the font on these messages,a larger problem continues to exist and that is the prevalence of claims that breakfast cereals can have magical disease-squelching properties. True, of all the cereals out in the market, Cheerios are probably the least of the evils with barely a gram of sugar and just 100 calories per 1 cup serving. A one cup serving (as mentioned in the Cheerios Nutrition Label) contains just 1g of soluble fiber. Note that this also contains 20g of carbohydrates (effectively 17g if you deduct the fiber as some folks like to).
Now notice their health claim (this is right on their box, Here’s an example): “Three grams of soluble fiber daily from whole-grain oat foods, like Cheerios, in a diet low in saturated fat and cholesterol, may reduce the risk of heart disease.” OK, so now one needs 3g of soluble fiber and they say you can get it from two 1.5 cup-servings of Cheerios. Subtle, but notice how they say 1.5-cup servings but their nutrition label really says a serving size is one cup! So essentially you are really having three servings of their nutrition label to get 3g of soluble fiber. By this time you have also consumed 51g of carbohydrates and even if it is whole grain, I am not sure if that is really going to do you that much good. In comparison, just a half-cup of kidney beans, pinto beans or brussel-sprouts will give you 2g of soluble fiber and its all natural!
The bottom line is really simply this: always read between the lines of any product manufacturer’s claims and see if there could be other factors contributing to their supposed benefits. For example, look at the Cheerios claim again. Note the phrase “in a diet low in saturated fat and cholesterol, may reduce the risk of heart disease”. So first of all there is no telling if a diet low in saturated fat and cholesterol might alone have reduced your cholesterol anyway even without adding any Cheerios! Secondly it only “may” reduce the “risk” of heart disease. There are just so many loopholes in this claim, that I could package tap-water and sell it with these exact claims and I would still be right!
“Drink plain water as part of a diet low in saturated fat and cholesterol, coupled with plenty of exercise and you may reduce the risk of heart disease”.
I feel like a big-industry-marketer already!
