What consumers read on nutritional labels may not be what they get. Results of tests conducted by the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services since 1999 and obtained by the South Florida Sun-Sentinel in Fort Lauderdale showed nearly 1,000 items with inaccurate food labels.

In the past year, three out of four diet products tested by the department proved to have erroneous information in their "nutritional facts" panels or on their labels, the newspaper reported recently.

The Tallahassee-based agency frequently tests for the accuracy of nutritional labels, but rarely makes the findings public.

"Since we've been doing some of these (tests) on and off for the last two years, some of their claims are just ridiculous," says Joanne Brown, bureau chief of the state food lab.

More than 1 in 10 bakery products and candies tested in the last year were misbranded. So were one of four dressings and condiments.

Some products erroneously claim to be "fat-free" or to have no sugar, according to the tests. For example, the label on the Low Carb World's vanilla eclair claims to have only 2 grams of fat and 2.8 grams of carbohydrates for each serving. Testing shows there are 17 grams of fat and 35.5 grams of carbohydrates.

The labels for Breads for Life hot dog and hamburger buns claims it contains no sugar. Tests found 3.5 grams of sugar for each serving.

Federal and state law requires food manufacturers to accurately represent what their products contain, but little quality control is done. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration last surveyed nutritional labels five years ago. It found inaccuracies in one of every 10 products and called that an excellent result.

Florida is one of a few states that tests food products to see if the contents match the label's claim. When the state finds offenders, it sends a letter of complaint. At times, that results in a revised label.

Food manufacturers also have some leeway in their claims. Federal law allows most products a 20% variance from the label. If a product says it contains 200 calories, it can legally have 240. Generally, a food company's claims have to be wrong by more than 30% to fail tests for nutrition content.

Critics of the labels say it's time for food manufacturers to shape up.

"If you make claims in writing, which are essentially a warranty, and they are far off from the claims, I think you impute fraud," says Florida Democratic State Sen. Steven Geller, from Hallandale Beach, who chairs the Agriculture and Consumer Services Committee. "If they don't dean up their act, I want them gone."

Food watchdogs and industry observers say it's not only the consumer's health at stake-but consumer confidence is also on the line.

"Once consumers start to doubt the accuracy of the calories, the fat, the sodium, they all lose value, because we don't know which ones are right and which ones are wrong," says Bonnie Liebman, director of nutrition at the Center for Science in the Public Interest.

Experts said the principal label offenders are not national brands, but regional and specialty ones.

Some of these specialists, such as Low Carb World and C.K. Distributors, run by Hadas Keynan from North Miami Beach, say they're working on the problem.

"They told us what we needed to correct and we did," Keynan says. Keynan!s business had six products fail testing this year.

Brown says a follow-up round of tests is not complete.

　　From Healthy.net