The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) warned the Coca-Cola company to revise the label of the Diet Coke Plus beverage with Vitamins and Minerals that was introduced in March 2007.[1]  The FDA says that the product is misbranded because it bears the nutrient content claim “plus” but does not comply with the regulations governing the use of this claim.

The term “plus” may be used on the label to describe the level of nutrients when the food contains at least 10 percent more of the Reference Daily Intake or Daily Reference Value for the nutrient than an appropriate comparable food.  The FDA does not consider it appropriate to fortify snack foods such as carbonated beverages.

The Coca-Cola company will respond to the FDA early in January, but it has no plans to change the label.  Scott Williamson, a spokesman for the Coca-Cola company, said:

“We believe the label on Diet Coke Plus complies with FDA’s policies and regulations.”

Adding vitamins and minerals to soft drinks seems designed to make consumers feel less guilty about consuming junk food, but even though diet soft drinks may not contain sugars that cause dental decay, they may still contain acids that erode tooth enamel.

[1] The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Warning Letter to the Coca-Cola Company

 

Last weekend I visited a friend who had unwittingly bought a carton of what he thought was 2% Reduced Fat Milk.  When I poured some of the product on my cereal, I noticed that the liquid did not have the smooth texture of milk.  It appeared to have small lumps like milk that is starting to curdle from spoilage.  Since he had just bought it, I looked at the label more closely.  It was not milk.  It was a “dairy beverage”.

The first ingredient in the Ingredient List of the label was water, followed by ultrafiltered fat free milk, cream, inorganic calcium and phosphorus salts, and emulsifiers (mono- and diglycerides), thickeners (carrageenan, locust bean gum), and artificial sweeteners (sucralose and acesulfame potassium).  Food labels are required to list the ingredients in decreasing order of concentration.  Since water is listed before the fat free milk, this means that the product contains more water than milk.

What scared me about this product was that the label said that a one-cup serving had 8 grams of protein — the same as skim milk.  If the product is half water and half skim milk, I would expect it to have half the protein.  Where is the extra protein coming from?  The ingredient list did not say.  This made me think about the recent scandal in China where watered down milk was adulterated with melamine to fool the standard tests for protein.

The discrepancy between the ingredient list and the nutrition facts indicates that something is wrong with this product.  Unfortunately, the FDA does not have enough resources to track down all labeling violations.