Are Food Labels a Scam?

Many Americans these days are demanding meat, eggs and dairy from animals that have been raised humanely and without the misuse of antibiotics, hormones and steroids. Food producers have responded to this demand by selling products with various labels such as “organic”, “free range”, and “humanely treated”. But can we actually trust any of these labels, or is it all just a marketing scam?

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Handy ASPCA food label cheat sheet:

A bit more thorough food label cheat sheet:

Animal Welfare Approved

Certified Humane

Global Animal Partnership

National Organic Program
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Music by:

Jason Shaw

Kevin MacLeod

Driftless Pony Club

Todd Umhoefer (Old Earth)

[ProfessorPolitics]

I think my favorite label is when vegetables are advertised as cholesterol free. I literally face-palmed when I saw that.

[BlueBaby]

This video is awesome! As a small farmer, thank you for making this to help others understand what labels (mostly don't) mean. We started farming to treat animals humanely and to eat animals and products from animals that have never had a bad day. So far we only have a few types of animals (chickens, ducks, pigs, goats, and rabbits), but we are slowly expanding and hope to have cows, alpacas, sheep, emu, turkey, guineas, quail, and peacocks in the next few years!

[ThatLaurenThing]

Great video! I'm a young human who recently had to start buying my own food and just a few days ago I had the dilemma of trying to figure out which chicken would be most okay to buy. now i know what to look for! :) thanks for making this!!

[Isaac]

First, my mom has a strong sensitivity to MSG in foods, and the rules for MSG are terrible. MSG is literally "monosodium glutamate", which is a glutamate they take from seaweed (I believe). If they take the glutamate from another source, such as yeast or soy, it'll be called "autolyzed yeast extract" or "autolyzed soy protein". These are listed in the ingredients, and will still make my mom sick. Even worse, products can have labels like "NO MSG!" or "NO MSG ADDED!", yet still have glutamates from other sources that do exactly the same thing. It's so unregulated, that they can even hide MSG in the ingredients lists as "Natural Flavor", as it is a naturally occuring substance, though they have added more to make it taste more savory. There is more information about it online.

Second, I currently live in Japan, and Japanese food labels are atrocious! They do not have any of the requirements that American nutrition labels have. One thing that really bothers me is trying to find out how many calories are in a product. First, you have to find out how much is in the product you bought. It is not clearly labeled on the front of the package, nor is it clear on the back. Sometimes it's not listed at all (though you can usually go online and find the size). After you know the size, then you check the label. Calorie content is often based upon an arbitrary number, or based on 100g. That means, if the label says "100g = 34 calories", you now have to do the math to figure out how much is in the entire package. So, let's say it's a package with 253g in it. And, the label says "68g = 312 calories". Just get out your calculator and you'll know the entire package has 1161 calories in it. Easy, right? No.

Much of Japan is what America was 20 years ago; CDs are still a thing here, as you can still buy and rent them from all over, DVD rental places are everywhere, magazines are still extremely popular, and technology is not embraced too much. Everyone thinks of Japan as having such amazing technology, with robots and blazing fast internet. And, though they do have extremely fast internet, the robots and the other quirky things people think embody Japan, are just novelties that don't really exist in most of Japan. So, labels here are stuck in the past, much like everything else in this country. Don't get me wrong; Japan is an amazing country, with lots to love about it. It's just that labels, along with a lot of other things, need to be updated and regulated much better here.

[DroolingYeastman]

In Denmark organic also means humanly treating the animals. We have the Ø-label which you can always trust!

[Eban]

You were really generous on the meaningful claims.

[aeron]

another problem with anti-biotic free is that some companies have two factories, treat their animals the same in each, but just send animals from the anti-biotic free one to the one where they do use antibiotics when they're not doing so great:/
Anyway, loved the video!! This stuff is so important

[alflurin]

In Portugal, it is either really hard to find and/or really expensive. When it comes to meat, my (medically prescribed) diet is mainly based on low fat meats. I never found organic chicken meat at any of my city's supermarkets. And free range is almost absent. Unfortunately, we still live in a culture of more is better instead of seeking to it perhaps a bit less but of superior quality. I rather have a 150g piece of organic meat than 500g of industrially produced meat. But that's me!

[Nhojneirbo]

Not just the labels. Food fraud is quite pervasive.

[fromscratchauntybindy]

In Australia we also have A LOT of label confusion - but thankfully we also have Choice magazine and their YouTube/ABC TV program The Checkout which tries it's best to provide consumer info that's not bias.

[sins]

As an animal husbandry student, I am ecstatic to see this video. One thing that wasn't mentioned with chickens is the almost always forgotten aspect of beak trimming. Beak trimming (the up-close shot of 6:18 in "less than ideal" housing systems look like hot blade trimmies) is usually done in two ways, either hot blade (the big no-no) or infrared laser trimming. This is mostly done during the rearing period (baby - laying first egg) and has severe impact in a hens ability to express their natural behaviors involving their beaks. Almost all of the EU is currently scrambling (yuk-yuk) for solutions and answers for dealing with the dangers that come from having hens with full beaks because beak trimming will be banned as of 2017. The issue with full beaks is that it increases the chances of injurious pecking (and in turn cannibalism) to a degree that can result in anywhere from 10% to 30% mortality in a flock. It's also extremely hard to prevent and treat since it is a massive multi-factorial issue which can only really be prevented by having good management, housing, environment, etc. Basically if you farm sucks on a couple aspects that you're likely to lose a lot of egg income due to cannibalism.

I feel like i have more to share but i can't put my finger on any relevant information at the time. Maybe if anyone has any questions it could jostle my databanks.

[Kram]

We definitely have confusing labels here in Europe (Austria).
Though I couldn't really tell you much about it.
Because, you know, it's confusing.

[JCrownMusic]

Great video! Absolutely informing/educational (as always, but still awesome)! Greatly appreciate the help on these terms and labels!

[spaceecake]

I'm a european student engineer in foodindustrie. Europe is pretty strict in this stuff and our packaging looks a lot more clean and straight forward then those depicted in this video. But Europe does not allow the use of hormones of any kind, in any kind of meat. So putting a label "hormone free" on european meat would be completely meaningless. The use of anti-biotics is also heavily regulated, so we as a customer just assume that the meat we eat, is conform to the rules. Terms like "free range" do get thrown around sometimes, but let's be real here, I live in heavily populated country, the idea that the chicken I'm eating has had a huge field to roam around in is pretty ridiculous.

Some other fun facts to mention. Europe (or at least belgium) has specific rules on what can be called "fat free", "reduced fat", "low fat". Same with sugar, one cannot just slap a "reduced sugar" label on a product without it actually meeting the european standards of a "reduced sugar" product (this standard does deviate from product to product ofcourse)

What we do see a lot are "quality labels" these used to mean something, because after the dioxine crisis in 1999 quality labels started popping up to ensure customers that their food was produced safe, and meeting a certain standard. The problem in 2016 is that we have so many quality labels (most big supermarkets have their own label) that it's has become impossible for a customer to know if a certain label has substantial value or not.

[EditsByLyra]

Very informative.Keep up the good work!

I thought it would have been important to add a couple of things though, just so consumers aren't deceived into thinking that the "good" labels at the end guarantee everything. Some things are inherent to the meat and dairy industry.
Meaning that no matter how well the animals are treated during their lifetime, they will share the same death experience as the others, since they will be sent to the same place to be killed. Which is a very stressful environment, with disregard to the animal's wellbeing, left to bleed out to death, with the only "reassuring" factor is that they supposedly have to be stunned before being split open - which sometimes works, but isn't that effective. And that's something that we tend to forget, when we're subjected to such beautiful packaging imagery, and reassuring labels.
Same goes for the eggs produced by "family" farms. If you are going to consume eggs, of course it's best to choose the most humane label you can find. But I think we ought to remember that taking a hen's egg is a source of physical and emotional stress for her. And in any case, the hens themselves had to be purchased from a place where the male chicks are thrown alive into a grinder because they are useless to the industry.
I'm not necessarily saying that everyone should stop consuming animal products right away, because I understand that we've been raised to prepare our meals this way, and even I still consume them, but I think we should at least open up our eyes to what that entails.

[imanechafik]

My mom always says “What you put inside your body it is had to take it out” it is really confusing all these labels and huge variety of items, the hidden additives, the hidden added sugar to almost everything. The fluoride added to baby’s water and food...so many things I wonder how it is even legal ?

[Scorpio]

While I respect veganism and agree that going vegan would make this all go away... just saying "go vegan" won't make the problem disappear, because the average person is NOT vegan and saying that to someone's face will not make most people change their lifestyle. It'll just polarize their opinions and lead to the "oh god vegans are so annoying" mindset rather than trying to make a change for the better. I think this video instead is a really good way of making baby steps towards reducing our meat consumption. Make the average consumer AWARE of the labels, the treatment, the exaggerated labels, and make them think critically. Change like this doesn't happen overnight!

[bmac]

Australia tends to have better labeling laws, and we do have clearly defined laws on what things like 'free range' mean, but things are still very confusing for consumers

[thingonometry-]

I would say that meat gotten by hunting (which there is quite a lot of in South Africa) is the most humane choice, although expensive. The animal lived in relatively wild conditions, ate organic hormone free food, completely free range and the killing of the animal is the quickest if done correctly (bullet through the head). Heck, hunting is even necessary to avoid overgrazing due to lack of natural predators.

Some people say the challenge of hunting and stalking the buck makes it more moral in a way. It also supports local and smaller scale industry.
One problem is that it's quite an expensive option, even a luxury (except if you're a buck poacher)

The springbok is probably the best example because there are so many of them here and they taste delicious.

[chrisrus]

This video is really good. It's like, scam-busting investigative journalism that we all could use because we all shop for food. Keep up the good work!