Posted on 07/30/2002 5:40:05 PM PDT by Reaganwuzthebest
WASHINGTON, July 30 /U.S. Newswire/ -- Ben & Jerry's misleads customers by falsely claiming that some of its ice cream and frozen yogurt products are "All Natural," when they contain artificial flavors, hydrogenated oils, or other factory-made substances, according to a complaint filed today by the nonprofit Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI). The group wants the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to take enforcement action against the company, a unit of the multinational food conglomerate Unilever.
"Ben & Jerry's enjoys a carefully-cultivated public image as an eco-friendly, worker-friendly brand -- the kind of company whose label claims should be truthful," CSPI executive director Michael F. Jacobson said. "So it's sad that Ben & Jerry's is trying to pass off products laden with these factory-spun ingredients as 'natural,' when there's little natural about them. These ingredients are man-made and simply don't occur in nature."
The label for Ben & Jerry's "Everything But The ..." ice cream states "all natural." But the small print in the ingredient list lists artificial flavors--an outright violation of the FDA's rules.
Other Ben & Jerry's products, like "Chocolate Fudge Brownie Low Fat Frozen Yogurt," include man-made ingredients like partially hydrogenated soybean oil, corn syrup, corn syrup solids, and alkalized cocoa powder. Use of the term "all natural"--and the implication that the product might be more healthful than another product--is especially misleading in the case of a hydrogenated oil, which likely contains heart-damaging trans fat, according to the complaint.
God D@mn Hippies!
It would be extremely cold of Ben & Jerry to do something like this
If they did this the court should freeze all their assets and put these two on ice!
The judge better not be soft on them.
I don't believe it,but if true they may face a rocky road ahead.
Sorry,couldn't help myself:)
Now that these bozos have plenty of bucks and time on their hands they are out promoting their communist agenda.
By the way, if you'd like to see an example of why the CSPI is an incredibly sleazy, untrustworthy organization, check this page out. It's about some goofy new food called "Quorn" that's pressed into imitation chicken and beef. Sort of like soybean burgers except they're made from a fungus instead. The thing is, the Quorn people are labelling it "mushroom in origin" when it's actually a fungus, and the CSPI have gone on the attack. Now, obviously they're right about the mislabelling, but they're not stopping there. They're also trying to get Quorn banned by asking people to report any "adverse reactions" they might believe to be Quorn-related. (The fact that it's impossible for a layperson to be able to tell whether their diarrhea was caused by Quorn, a plain old cold, bad beer, or anything else they'd eaten or come in contact with in the last 24-48 hours, is of no consequence to CSPI.) Even though there's absolutely no evidence to suggest Quorn is in the slightest bit dangerous (it's been sold in Britain for almost 20 years), CSPI is trying to kill it purely out of spite. It's a fungus, so it must be scary and bad! Bah.
(Sidenote: The average person reports that they experience some sort of "bowel discomfort" TWICE A WEEK. So almost every new food product or additive to come down the pike in the last 20-30 years that some ultraleftist "consumer advocacy group" claimed was dangerous because it made people sick, is flat-out false. You could get people to blame purified water for their intestinal gas if you phrased the questions correctly.)
ummmm......I don't think I want to touch that one ;-)
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