Fw: Foods as cures

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> CANADA PROHIBITS BILLING FOODS AS CURES

> December 13, 2001

> The Gazette (Montreal)

> Cheryl Cornacchia

> Calcium-rich, soy-based, iron-fortified. So-called superfoods that target

> women with gender-specific health claims are surfacing at stores in the

> United States. In Canada, the packaging would be illegal.

> Are women here missing out?

> Take Harmony, a new low-fat breakfast cereal for women from General Mills.

> It says right on the box that it will meet the " nutritional needs of

women. "

> Nutrition for Women is called a " specially formulated " Quaker Instant

> Oatmeal. Its package proclaims it can " impact heart-disease risk factors

> such as high cholesterol. "

> Woman's Bread is a compact loaf from French Meadows Bakery that, according

> to its label, can reduce the symptoms of pre-menstrual syndrome and

> menopause.

> These products and a raft of others aimed at female baby-boomers have been

> available in the U.S. for six months or more. They are loaded with folic

> acid, iron, calcium, antioxidants, soy protein, isoflavones and a whole

host

> of other nutrients that recent research has suggested can be instrumental

in

> the fight against heart disease, osteoporosis, breast cancer and

menopausal

> symptoms. They push all the right buttons and they're enough to make a

woman

> cry, " Bring on the food! "

> But Canadians won't find any of these foods on local grocery-store shelves

> now or, according to Health Canada sources, anytime soon. And three health

> experts here say Canadian women are better off without them.

> Louise Lambert-Lagace, Kathleen O'Grady and Anne McConkey have followed

the

> medical research and health issues that concern female baby-boomers, the

> target group of these new products. (In Canada, there are 3.5 million

women

> who are now between the ages of 40 and 54.)

> " They're quick fixes - and there's no such thing, " weighed in O'Grady, the

> editor of A Friend Indeed, an international menopause newsletter and a

> visiting scholar at the University of Ottawa. " I'm very pleased they're

not

> available in Canada. "

> O'Grady was further cited as saying there is strong evidence showing the

> benefits of phytoestrogens from flax, soy and oatmeal in the fight against

> osteoporosis, breast cancer and heart disease. But adding phytoestrogens

to

> packaged foods as a supplement and claiming that food is good for all

women

> is something completely different, she said.

> The smooth marketing leaves women with the impression that they all

benefit

> equally from the additives pumped into these foods and that's just not

> According to this story, Canada's Food and Drugs Act prohibits advertising

> of food as a treatment, preventative or cure for a list of 40 different

> diseases, disorders and health complaints, ranging from alcoholism,

> arthritis and cancer to depression, gout, heart disease and obesity.

> For more information about food labeling, visit the Canadian Food

> Inspection Agency's Web site at www.inspection.gc.ca and click on the

Guide

> to Food Labeling and Advertising.

> Lambert-Lagace, a Montreal nutritionist and author of Good Nutrition for a

> Healthy Menopause (Stoddart, $22.95) was, the story says, equally

skeptical

> about the value of the new products, adding, " If you're taking

> hormone-replacement therapy and prescribed one pill a day, you

> wouldn't take two. " But if you ate four slices of this new bread for

> women you would be consuming more than the daily requirement of

> isoflavones, she added.

> Woman's Bread contains 80 mg of soy isoflavones per two-slice serving -

also

> the average menopausal woman's daily requirement of isoflavones. " A woman

> could easily consume too much soy, " Lambert-Lagace said. " We're not meant

to

> have fortified food in every mouthful. Do we really need superfoods? "

> These new products are expensive to buy, she said, and they're

unnecessary.

> Ordinary breakfast cereals sold in Canada are already fortified with iron

> and B vitamins. Pink grapefruit, blueberries and tomato paste are all a

rich

> source of antioxidants, while milk, yogurt, new and improved flavoured soy

> milks, tofu and flax seed are loaded with calcium, isoflavones or lignans

> (the phytoestrogens from flax).

> Just because you load up a product doesn't mean it's great, Lambert-Lagace

> said. For instance, she said, both the Harmony cereal and the Quaker Oats'

> women's formulas are fortified with calcium and iron. But there's

> competition for absorption between calcium and iron.

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