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From: jaffe@topaz.ARPA (Saul)
Newsgroups: net.consumers
Subject: Re: on misleading food labels
Message-ID: <337@topaz.ARPA>
Date: Sun, 20-Jan-85 12:19:15 EST
Article-I.D.: topaz.337
Posted: Sun Jan 20 12:19:15 1985
Date-Received: Mon, 21-Jan-85 04:38:59 EST
References: <4800002@hp-sdd.UUCP>
Organization: Rutgers Univ., New Brunswick, N.J.
Lines: 31

> Of course, not all foods have to be labelled by law!  

Not true!  There is a federal law that requires ALL manufactured
products to have an ingredient list on the package.  The only
exception is "natural products" like fruits, nuts, vegetables etc.

There is also a new law by the way that requires restaurants to
list all ingredients used in their foods.  This was done because
many people were filing suits against restaurants because they got
sick on the food and it was found that they were allergic to
certain ingredients.  The restaurant certainly has the obligation
to tell you if any of the ingredients they use might be harmful to
you and the only real way to do this is to force them to list their
ingredients.  Unfortunately, although the law exists, there is no
enforcement of it.  Typical.  Probably the only way to get it
enforced is to have someone actually die from eating food made with
ingredients they were allergic to and have the estate sue the
restaurant for manslaughter.

There is a program in syndication called "Fight Back! With David
Horowitz" in which you can find out lots of interesting facts.
They also do commercial challenges to show whether a particular
product actually does what the commercial claims.  It usually
doesn't.

-- 
Saul Jaffe
Systems Programmer
Rutgers University
ARPA: Jaffe@Rutgers
UUCP: Jaffe@Topaz