Brain exercise

Last week, the SF Chronicle ran an article with the headline “Cancer labels on cereal ruled unnecessary.”  Here is the link to the article.

The article provides us with an opportunity to investigate what regulation is intended to do, what it does, and how we evaluate information.

California Proposition 65 requires that companies notify consumers of cancer- or birth-defect-causing ingredients.  As a result, we see things like notices on fancy crystal, on alcoholic drinks, and even on Disneyland.  The goal of the proposition is to allow us the opportunity to make informed decisions about what to ingest and/or come in contact with.  Unfortunately, many of the warnings do not specify what ingredients are problematic.

Digging deeper into the specific case in the article, I checked out acrylamide.  It is a chemical created by heat in specific foods and also has topical effects.  In laboratory animals, it does seem to correlate with cancer of various types.  There is limited experimental evidence of cancer-causing in humans and the levels in the foods in question are low enough to be unlikely to cause issues.

That said, manufacturers of the cereals don’t want to put the labels on their product because they want to sell more product.  While we can assume that killing consumers is bad for marketing, the purpose of cereal companies is not to make healthy consumers, but to make more profits.  We can safely assume that companies will trumpet health claims and bury danger signs whenever possible.

The position of the court in the ruling focused on the fact that many of the cereals in question are whole-grain products and that Americans, in general, should be eating more whole grains.  The court feels that the risk of not eating whole grains is worse than the risk of contracting cancer from acrylamide.  Whether we agree with that ruling is up to us.

Bottom line, as always, is check it out.  Research whenever possible.  Find the data and evaluate.  (Suggested further reading:  Marion Nestle’s Food Politics, which explores some of the reasons why industry and government nutrition information can have serious flaws.)