Ad nausea.Deceptive ads for foods or supplements are a dime a dozen. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC FTC See Federal Trade Commission (FTC). ), which regulates ads, has a tough time keeping up. Here are a few of its recent actions. Several started with complaints by the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI CSPI Center for Science in the Public Interest CSPI Corporate Service Price Index CSPI Cumulative Schedule Performance Index ): * Pizzeria Uno. In January, the Boston-based restaurant chain agreed to stop advertising its line of "Thinzettas" as "low-fat thin crust pizzas." Six of the eight "Thinzettas" were not low in fat. Some had 36 grams of fat per serving. * Ensure. In January, the FTC ordered Abbott Labs to stop making unsubstantiated claims like "#1 Doctor Recommended" in ads for its liquid meal replacement. However, in March, CSPI complained that ads still imply that Ensure has everything in food that promotes health. The "Doctor Recommended" ads remain on TV. * Gerber. In March, Gerber agreed to stop claiming that four out of five pediatricians recommend its baby food. In fact, only 12 percent of pediatricians recommend Gerber. (Gerber left out doctors who didn't recommend baby food at all and those who don't recommend specific brands.) * Chromium chromium (krō`mēəm) [Gr.,=color], metallic chemical element; symbol Cr; at. no. 24; at. wt. 51.996; m.p. about 1,857°C;; b.p. 2,672°C;; sp. gr. about 7.2 at 20°C;; valence +2, +3, +6. Picolinate. Nutrition 21 (the sole supplier of chromium picolinate), Body Gold (maker of Super Fat Burner A drive that writes write-once optical discs such as CD-Rs and DVD-Rs. A "burner" implies a one-time recording, but the term is erroneously used to refer to drives that "write" to re-recordable CD-RW and DVD-RW/+RW media as well. See burn, CD-R and DVD-R. Formula and other chromium supplements), and Universal Merchants (distributor of Chromatrim chewing gum chewing gum, confection consisting usually of chicle, flavorings, and corn syrup and sugar (or artificial sweeteners). Prehistoric people are believed to have chewed resins. ) agreed to stop claiming that chromium causes long-term weight-loss, burns fat and builds muscle, raises metabolic rate Noun 1. metabolic rate - rate of metabolism; the amount of energy expended in a give period basal metabolic rate, BMR - the rate at which heat is produced by an individual in a resting state , controls appetite, lowers blood cholesterol or blood sugar levels, or treats or prevents diabetes. Unfortunately, other companies can still make the same claims. |
|
||||||||||||||||||
Printer friendly
Cite/link
Email
Feedback
Reader Opinion