Re: Ice tea and Robin Hood

On Sat, 28 Aug 2004 15:25:23 -0400, Mark J. Reed <markjreed@...>
wrote:

> On Sat, Aug 28, 2004 at 07:12:48PM +0200, Andreas Johansson wrote:
>> The versions commonly available in Sweden are:
>>
>> 3%
>> 1.5%
>> .5%
>> .1%
>
> Wow, 0.1%?  Why on earth bother to distinguish that from fat free?  In
> fact,
> I would not be surprised (though I do not know) if  in the US milk with
> 0.1% milkfat could legally claim to be fat-free.
Knowing Europe, they're probably not allowed to say fat-free unless it
really is, guaranteed for every pint -- er, litre -- entirely free of all
fats. Due to the vagaries of food production, such things are a pipedream,
so, they pick a number that it *will* always be at least near, and label
it as that. This is unlike the USA, where ingredient and quality labelling
standards are relatively lax. This is quite well exemplified by the
"contains 2% or less of (list of stuff in no particular order)" wording
that crops up on a lot of foods manufactured under license at a large
number of factories, and the labelling on some (also mass-produced) drinks
that they contain "Sugar and/or High Fructose Corn Syrup", which I would
never expect to see in Europe. I guess it comes down to which lobbying
groups have a louder voice...




Paul