6 MASS. EXPERIMENT STATION BULLETIN 342 



VAGUE HEALTH CLAIMS 



The layman should beware of so-called health foods, perfectly balanced foods, 

 scientific food concentrates and other food products for which the makers claim 

 curative or health-giving properties. 



1. HEALTH FOODS 



The Food and Drug Administration believes that — 2 



. . . the use of the word health in connection with foods constitutes 

 a misbranding under the Food and Drugs Act. The use of this word im- 

 plies that these products have health-giving or curative properties, when, 

 in general, they merely possess some of the nutritive qualities to be 

 expected in any wholesome food product. The label claims on these 

 products are such that the consumer is led to believe that our ordinary 

 diet is sorely deficient in such vital substances as vitamins and minerals, 

 and that these so-called health foods are absolutely necessary to con- 

 serve life and health. 



The Food Law officials do not object to calling these products wholesome 

 provided they are wholesome, but the effort to give the impression that we 

 all need something added to our every-day diet if we are to avoid nutritional 

 disaster is a misrepresentation which these authorities aim to combat. 



The Council on Foods is even more explicit in defining the proper use of the 

 terms health, healthful, and wholesome. 1 



The term health food and equivalent claims or statements to the effect 

 that a food gives or assures health are vague, misinformative and mis- 

 leading. An adequate or complete diet and the recognized nutritional 

 essentials established by the science of nutrition are necessary for health, 

 but health depends on many other factors than those provided by 

 such diet or nutritional essentials. No one food is essential for health; 

 there are no health foods. Statements of well-established nutritional 

 or physiologic values of foods are permissible. 



The term healthful is frequently encountered in food advertising. 

 As used, it commonly means that the food described corrects a possible 

 nutritive deficiency or some abnormal condition in such a manner as 

 actively to improve health. It incorrectly implies that the food possesses 

 unique (or unusual) health-giving properties. The term has a popular 

 specific health food significance which makes its use in advertising mis- 

 informative and misleading. 



Healthful and wholesome by dictionary definition have almost identical 

 meanings; the former, however, intimates an active significance, where- 

 as, the latter signifies quality or condition. Wholesome indicates that a 

 food so described is sound, clean, fit for consumption, and free of any ob- 

 jectionable qualities; it is appropriate for characterizing foods fulfilling 

 these qualifications and should replace healthful as used in food adver- 

 tising. 



The same unwarranted claims made for patent medicines a few decades ago 

 are made today by the manufacturers of "Health Foods." Weird concoctions 

 of ground alfalfa or dried vegetables, inorganic salts, and flavoring are foisted 

 on the unfortunate public as panaceas for every conceivable ailment, real or 

 imaginary. As one commentator has said, "The ignorance of nutrition dis- 

 played by such promoters is equaled only by the extravagance of their claims." 8 

 One wonders whether such ignorance is sincere. 



A single product may be recommended both for gaining and reducing weight, 



Reference 1 on page 4. 



Press Service. U.S.D.A. May 22. 1929. 



Council on Foods. J. A.M. A ios. 47, 19J7. 



