The big fat lies: Food regulator exposes adverts' bogus claims over nutritional value as it prepares to prosecute 19 cases

The Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) has initiated proceedings in 38 cases involving leading brands, including Kellogg's Special K

You are being led up the garden path by manufacturers of food and health products making tall claims in advertisements.

The Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) - which put many products under its scanner over the misleading claims - has initiated proceedings in 38 cases involving leading brands.

The food regulator, which has received complaints against the products, has begun prosecution proceedings in 19 cases under the Food Safety and Standards (FSS) Act.

Show-cause notices have been issued in the other 19 cases. The advertisements of the products, which are popular with most Indian households, promise quick results from slimming to healthy heart and faster growth for children.

The food regulator, which has presented a report to Parliament on the action taken in these cases, found that the companies manufacturing the food and health products not only made misleading claims in the advertisements but also carried similar pictures on the packaging. For instance, Complan is currently facing prosecution for claiming one can 'grow two times faster'. Complan Memory is in trouble over claims of boosting memory.

Boost and Horlicks, popular nutrition food for children made by Glaxo Smithkline, claimed they were better for stamina building than regular chocolate drinks and made children taller, stronger and sharper. The FSSAI said these claims were 'misleading, and no study has been submitted' to back the claims.

On Kellogg's Extra Muesli, the food regulator said the 'label showed a number of fruits thus making a misleading claim that product contained too many fruits'. Others products under the food regulator's scanner are Emami Soyabean Oil, Saffola, Nutri Charge Men, Engine mustard oil, Kellogg's Special K, Britannia NutriChoice biscuits, Today Premium Tea, PediaSure drinks, Real Active Fibre +, Nutrilite, Kissan Cream Spread, Rajdhani Besan and Britannia Vita Marie. These were found to have promised higher health benefits, higher nutritional value, or faster benefits like losing weight or ensuring growth.

The report presented to Parliament by FSSAI showed it had rejected some of the replies to the notices given by the companies saying they 'cannot be accepted'.

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Boost and Horlicks claimed they were better for stamina building than regular chocolate drinks and made children taller

When contacted by Mail Today, officials from various companies like Kellogg's, Glaxo SmithKline that manufactures Horlicks and Nestle which makes Maggi declined to comment immediately.

However, the officials were aware of the show-cause notices issued to their firms by FSSAI. Chandra Bhushan, deputy director of the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE), said, 'Only notices have issued but no action has been taken. Still, it's good that notices have been issued. Misbranding is a huge problem in the country. The companies target especially children and the health conscious, which is a very emotive issue.'

He said the Advertising Standards Council of India is ineffective in putting curbs on such misleading ads. He added that under the current provisions of the FSS Act, a fine of Rs 10 lakh is very small. He suggested that penalty should be proportionate to the turnover. 'Major reforms are needed in the sector to save people,' Bhushan said.

Neelanjana Singh, consultant nutritionist at PSRI Hospital said, 'Our children cannot just become taller with that special drink. Height, for example, is largely dependent on genes and nutrition. Just a drink might add to the nutrition but cannot solely be given credit for it. If we are to believe the manufacturing companies' claims, all health woes will just disappear.'

Deceptive ads

Singh described the ads as deceptive. She said some drinks boast of being magic potions which can strengthen a child's immune system, protect them from cold and cough but have almost no medicinal content. 'There is no scientific evidence to back their claims,' she said. For special health drinks, dieticians said that their nutrition value, in fact, is low. 'In almost all these health drinks in the market, you would find from their labels that less than 6-7 per cent of their total content actually has proteins and vitamins vital for growth. The rest of the drink has processed ingredients, with 30 per cent sugar and 30 per cent carbs. The different flavours too are processed, rendering them in certain cases, unhealthy,' said Shilpa Thakur, chief dietician at the Asian Institute of Medical Sciences.

A range of products under the scanner

Ishi Khosla, clinical nutritionist and founder, Whole Foods on breakfast cereals, said,'Breakfast cereals which are said to be storehouses of energy, are marketed as fat free but they are high in sugar content. The advertisers are simply riding high on the health bandwagon which everyone seems to have joined.'

In March this year, CSE had lab tested many of the popular brands and found that most of them had higher quantity of trans fats, sugar and salt than claimed in the labels. The misleading advertisements come under the purview of the FSSAI and the Information and Broadcasting ministry. Consumers often write to these bodies against products making big claims.

The Information and Broadcasting ministry, on its part, claimed that it had issued an advisory to all channels in May 2010 warning against advertising products promising special and miraculous cure. Khosla said that a "health fear" had gripped people. 'These companies are simply playing on the fear factor by making fat claims.

'The competition is too stiff and that has led to the spurt in the health products and their claims are getting bigger and bigger. Consumers should read the fine print carefully before falling for them.'