From: Alfio Puglisi (puglisi@arcetri.astro.it)
Date: Mon Jun 23 2003 - 11:40:04 MDT
On Mon, 23 Jun 2003, Brian Atkins wrote:
>Alfio Puglisi wrote:
>>
>> Now, the EU is trying to bring the different food standards in a common
>> one. For chocolate, they ruled that up to 5% of the total weight can be
>> replaced with filler additives with different taste. Something that no one
>> here wants to eat.
>>
>> What's the problem, you'll ask? Just don't buy them. But, the problem is
>> that, up to the 5% limit, the producer is not required to write it on the
>> label, and the consumer has NO way to know.
>>
>
>If, as you claim, people in Italy care that much about about sub-5%
>filler in their chocolate,
That sub-5% can be very evident...
>why don't they simply organize together to
>pay some lab a rather paltry fee to test various brands of chocolate to
>see which ones are filler-free? It would cost each person practically
>nothing if you got any decent amount of people together, and with the
>age of the Internet you would think it would be simple to post the
>results nationwide.
This would solve the problem, but from the wrong angle. Why should we set
up a lab and analyze each and every different brand, when this is basic
information that should be released from the start? It's a zero cost for
the producer, that already knows those values.
I don't know about the US, but here many brands of biscuits, breakfast
cereals and so on print on the side of the box a breakdown of nutritional
values - e.g. how many grams of proteins, fats and carbs, how many Kcal
for 100 grams, all kinds of useful information. I saw this as a big step
in the right direction. The provision to put 5% of something else without
telling anyone just doesn't sound right to me.
Ciao,
Alfio
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