Search For Truth Hits Grocery Aisles

A box of fig bars in the snack aisle of Edge of the Woods caught Hamita Sachar’s eye.

Sachar, vice-chair of gastroenterology at Yale Medical School, wasn’t looking for a nosh. She was looking at the words on the box. 

She popped by the Whalley Avenue natural foods grocery Tuesday along with Connecticut U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal to make the case for passage of the first updating of food package labeling requirements in over three decades.

They held a press conference outside Edge to highlight the Food Labeling Modernization Act, which Blumenthal has cosponsored in the Senate and New Haven U.S. Rep. Rosa DeLauro has sponsored in the House of Representatives. It would require ingredient lists to appear on the fronts of packaged foods, impose stricter salt and sugar and saturated fat standards for labeling foods as ​“healthy” or ​“natural” and updated standards for claims of ​“whole grains,” and require clear disclosure about the true amount of fruit in ​“fruit drinks” or vegetables in ​“veggie snacks” or about the presence of gluten. Not just wheat gluten, but rye and barley, as well, the presence of which can have severe health consequences for America’s 3.3 million sufferers of celiac disease.

The bill would also empower the Food and Drug Administration to hold manufacturers accountable for violations.

Read details of the bill here.

“People with celiac disease have second jobs as investigators” trying to figure out if they’re buying safe food, Sachar said during a press conference outside the store.

“Consumers deserve the truth about what they eat,” Blumenthal stated.

Blumenthal noted that food labeling standards were last updated in 1990. Some standards date back to 1938. Meanwhile, the world has learned more about allergens like gluten and some companies have made a practice of peddling misleading (or ​“lying”) claims about ​“healthy” junk foods. And consumers pay more attention than ever before to what’s inside the package. (There was no discussion at the presser about whether the use of ​“healthy” instead of ​“healthful” violates English language standards, or whether those standards, too, have changed.)

Rather than make an example of a supermarket stocked with ​“lying labels,” the senator chose to have Tuesday’s event outside one of the most healthful food outlets in Connecticut.

“We’re here at one of the good-guy stores,” said Blumenthal, pictured above with Edge of the Woods owner Peter Dodge.

After the press conference, Sachar browsed the aisles, pointing out examples of food manufacturers who already buck the misleading trend and offer clear, helpful information on their packages that accurately depicts the content of their enclosed products. Like the blueberry Nature’s Bakery fig bars pictured at the top of the store and the above-pictured San‑J tamari, both clearly marked gluten-free.

Of course it helps when a manufacturer is trying to sell a truly healthful product, and it appears in a store with a reputation for paying attention to the nutritional value of what’s on the shelves.