Makers of food are not supposed to make medical claims, such as saying their product will lower cholesterol or whatever.
If this were allowed, we could have all kinds of false claims all over the place. In fact, there have been.
The consumer should just educate himself and know that whole grains are good and why. I personally do not want cereal companies, or anyone else, giving me medical information or advice regarding their product when they are not doctors and may be lying to sell the product.
The problem is a diet without balance promotes deficiencies which lead to disease if not corrected. Some early deficiencies and the pathology which follows can be corrected if corrected in time.
But medicine isn't aimed at dietary needs. Medicine isn't even aimed at producing a cure: It is aimed primarially at treating the symptoms, relieving discomfort, altering the body's response so that test appear to be more positive, and prolonging the quality of life (or at least projecting the image that this is being accomplished 'because of modern medicine').
But, I think, Hippocrates, considered to be the father of medicine, is credited with teaching his students 'you are what you eat'.
There can be no such thing as 'a nutritional deficiency' or an imbalance in diet if there doesn't exist the possibility of balanced nutrition in contrast. These issues were being studied rather vigourously in the first half of the twentieth century and most of what is known now is a product of those early studies. However, studies in nutrition and the metabolics of the body have been a low priority since the end of WW II. If one were to follow the pharmaceutical industry and the economics it produces, and its influence upon research, and lobbies, and laws affecting food and drugs.... one might get a different perspective regarding why little is being disseminated today concerning nutritional requirements and nutritional balance and good health.
With Cheerios, I think the issue concerns the question 'Does it contribute to controlling or lowering the cholesterol and placque build up in the blood vessels?' .....How about oatmeal.... does it make a difference when included in the diet in contrast to if it is withheld? If it does then isn't it right to include this information to the public..... unless there is no problem with cholesterol.... in which case..... why give a drug to control something which the body makes naturally and which doesn't matter anyway: And, if controlling cholesterol is important and one needs drugs to help keep it under control, is it not also wise to be informed about the foods which affect and support the lab values of cholesterol, and inform the public so they can include these dietary 'helps' as part of their dietary habits?
Everything we eat contributes something to our balance of health.... and in spite of the standardizations of 'allowances' for gender and age groups.... there are also individual differences, which may be altered by infections, injury, genetics, and disease,....... and even by medications which are deemed to be necessary....may interfere with the balance and create greater needs in some areas and less needs in other areas.
Even, dietary supplements, which many take with the thinking that they are helping to maintain health.... may not be all that its 'racked up' to be: We allow ourselves to be confused when we hear or read conflicting statements about supplement studies. Seldom is it revealed as to how detailed or specific a study is done.
For example: The recent study on Vitamin E which caused many people to stop taking that supplement or brought the wisdom of taking it into question that it could also produce side effects: When revealing these studies to the public through news reports... the information isn't volunteered and may not even be part of the published study to inform us of the QUALITY of the Vitamin E which was studied: First of all, was it nature's own carefully isolated Vitamin E which was isolated and used in the study or was it a cheaper and synthetic form of Vitamin E? While some believe a chemically made copy is as good as the original, there are others who contend that synthetic versions of nutrients are like synthetic hormones.... they may work in some instances for a while, but their bioavailablity and activity in the body as a substitute for the real, maybe recognized by the body's systems as being inferior, or artificial, and eventually lead to other problems as the body tries to make adjustments to deal with those balances foreign to nature. Second, if in natural form, vitamin E has 8 different chemical structures, all or most of which are present in the foods in which it is naturally found... then did the study carefully include the balanced formulation as God made it, or did the test include the most prominent or cheapest form of that Vitamin and exclude the others from combination, thus limiting the study to the effectiveness of just one form?
HOW ABOUT THE TRANSFAT ISSUE....controlled by the FDA? That issue being...... it is reported in some literature that there is no 'safe' allowance for transfats. The FDA, accepted this and decided that foods containing transfats must be so labeled and so labeling started: But the Food Industry complained and the FDA ................ The FDA BACKED DOWN from informing the public because the Food Industry's protest, and now the only time we're informed if a food contains transfats IS IF the transfats are or exceed 0.5 mg/per serving....... whatever the Food Industry declares constitutes a 'serving'. If 4 ounces (120g) is considered a serving, and the can contains 3 1/2 servings..... it makes no difference if the can will be one person's serving or split between two...... But in most instances, one can believe that the servings represented on a package seldom represents what goes on the plate of an active adult or teenager. Thus the FDA is misleading us and IS NOT INFORMING US.
