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American Morning
'Good Housekeeping' Editor Discusses False Fat Claims
Aired February 28, 2002 - 08:23 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: Just when you think you've found a low-fat treat that seems too good to be true, it is. So who's fudging the facts on fat?
"Good Housekeeping" nutrition editor Delia Hammock is here with some answers.
So, I was stunned when I read this in your magazine. Now you tested some foods, which are allegedly low in fat. What did you find?
DELIA HAMMOCK, "GOOD HOUSEKEEPING" NUTRITION EDITOR: Well we found that you just can't always believe what's on the label -- calories or fat. We started out with an English muffin that we found, it was advertised as being 70 calories for this giant English muffin, and I got suspicious about that. And sent it out to the lab and it turned out to be 160 calories.
COOPER: Now I've been exercising a lot lately and trying to eat a really good diet and my favorite snack food is this -- Pirate's Booty.
HAMMOCK: Exactly, your favorite and a lot of other favorites too.
COOPER: Right. And on the label it's -- it always -- well it used to say it had three grams of fat.
HAMMOCK: 2.5 grams of fat.
COOPER: Right.
HAMMOCK: Correct ...
(CROSSTALK)
COOPER: And it taste good and so there's -- I mean I was eating this thing by the bucketful.
HAMMOCK: Everybody kept telling you that, so finally I got some and tasted it and said I don't think so. And I sent that out to the laboratory, and what I found was that it really had 8.5 grams of fat, which is over three times as much.
COOPER: So -- and the label said it had ... HAMMOCK: 2.5.
COOPER: 2.5 and in reality it had 8.5.
HAMMOCK: ... .5.
COOPER: So 8.5, that's like a bag of Doritos.
HAMMOCK: That's correct. It's exactly the same as a bag of Doritos.
COOPER: So I could have -- I could have been eating munching on Doritos this whole time? Man.
HAMMOCK: And not only that, but the portion size was confusing too. So people were eating this and thinking that they were getting this, 120 calories because that's what's in a one-ounce serving ...
COOPER: Right.
HAMMOCK: ... but the bag is a 1.4-ounce serving, so you're getting 25 percent more calories and more fat ...
(CROSSTALK)
COOPER: I can't believe this.
(CROSSTALK)
HAMMOCK: So this really had 11 grams of fat in this little bag, you know and almost 185 calories.
COOPER: Man, what a (EXPLETIVE DELETED). What -- so you contacted the company. What did they have to say about this? How did they explain this?
HAMMOCK: Well they said that there was a manufacturing glitch. They were sort of ...
COOPER: A glitch?
HAMMOCK: A glitch -- and it seemed that there was more cheese that was being put on it than should have been put on it, but they knew about it, and they were going to fix it now that we knew about it.
COOPER: Do you believe it was just a glitch?
HAMMOCK: Well, you know, who knows?
(CROSSTALK)
HAMMOCK: I mean that's what they said. They said it had only been that way for several weeks, but I had bought the samples ...
(CROSSTALK) COOPER: I've been eating ...
(CROSSTALK)
COOPER: ... for more than a year.
HAMMOCK: I know. But we really -- we really don't know ...
COOPER: I'm mad.
HAMMOCK: ... you know what the real story is, but they have changed the label. They reformulate the product, and they have changed the label now.
COOPER: So what should people watch for? I mean what should people look for when they're looking at a label and they're looking for low-fat food? What should they be wary of?
HAMMOCK: Well the first -- most national products tend to be accurate. But if you're talking about regionally distributed products or especially locally produced products, you're in a real danger zone, especially if it is promoted as being a diet food or a healthy food or low sugar food, sugar free, any of those terms, be very suspicious.
The studies that have been done and there have been several along the way ...
COOPER: So small companies?
HAMMOCK: ... show that small companies regionally produce foods that makes claim -- make claims like that are very likely to be inaccurate.
COOPER: Besides Pirate's Booty, is there any other name brand that we should be watching for that you've tested?
HAMMOCK: No, not -- we seem to be at -- we're a national magazine so we tend to focus on nationally manufactured advertised foods. So we haven't looked at this really closely before, but because of this, I think, we're going to be looking at some of the smaller companies as well.
COOPER: And obviously, as you said, portion size is key. You've got to look very closely at the label for that.
HAMMOCK: Absolutely. Make sure that the nutrition facts are for the portion you are actually eating.
COOPER: All right, Delia Hammock, "Good Housekeeping" Magazine, thanks very much for joining us. I'm crushed, but I appreciate the information. Thank you very much.
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