Health

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Smart Balance Butter Blend Helps Block Cholesterol?

Many consumers switched from butter to margarine decades ago to help reduce their intake of cholesterol. Now Smart Balance has come out with a combination product that blends butter with canola oil, impliedly claiming that it is a healthier version of butter. Some would say that is kind of like sprinkling vitamins on Twinkies and calling it a health food. But wait, there’s more.

The product label says it “helps block cholesterol.”

Smart Balance

Huh? Eat butter to block cholesterol?

The label says it contains 100mg of plant sterols, which according to the company’s website helps block absorption of the cholesterol that is contained in the butter.

*MOUSE PRINT:

According to Shop Smart magazine, Consumer Reports’ sister publication, you would have to eat 13 tablespoons of this butter everyday to help lower your risk of heart disease. That is 1300 calories and almost the whole container.

The makers of Smart Balance failed to answer questions about their product when asked.

To be fair, the company is claiming in essence to only reduce some of the cholesterol in each serving of their butter blend and not to lower your cholesterol. In any event, eating products with no cholesterol to start with is still a healthier idea.

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The Little Secret Inside that Big Pill Bottle

A couple of years ago, MrConsumer’s doctor recommended that he take 1000 iu of vitamin D a day. Recently he switched from tablets to softgels, and got quite a surprise when he opened the bottle.

Here is the CVS pill bottle with contains 300 softgels:

CVS D3

Upon opening the bottle, MrConsumer discovered that most of the bottle was just filled with air, with the softgels way at the bottom.

*MOUSE PRINT:

CVS fill line

In this roughly five-inch high bottle, the pills only occupy the bottom one-and-one-quarter inches.

Had MrConsumer had his trusty x-ray device with him at the store, he would have seen this:

*MOUSE PRINT x-ray:

CVS D3 x-ray

Presumably there really were 300 softgels in the bottle, so that is not the issue. This is, however, an example of over-packaging or “slack-fill” as it is known. Slack-fill is the difference between the actual capacity of a container and the volume of product contained therein. If the extra space is really non-functional and not required for filling machines to operate properly, the product can be deemed misbranded under federal law.

It certainly would be cheaper for CVS to use a smaller bottle, and better for the environment. One has to wonder, then, why they continue to sell pills in oversized bottles. So we asked them.

“The front label on our over the counter products clearly states the number of pills/capsules/tablets contained in the bottle, as evidenced by the sample photo you provided, to ensure that customers are aware of the quantity being purchased. We also need to ensure that the container is sufficient in size to accommodate the required drug fact information. Generally speaking, manufacturers choose the container size.” — Public Relations, CVS/pharmacy

Coincidentally, Consumer Reports in its August issue shows more examples of air-filled pill bottles and gets other explanations of why this is a common practice.

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“Does Not Contain High Fructose Corn Syrup”

High fructose corn syrup is a dirty word to many shoppers. They have heard that the body doesn’t digest and absorb the fructose in this cheap sugar substitute the way ordinary sugar is metabolized. The liver is forced to convert the fructose into fat, and we get the urge to eat more.

No wonder a number of products have reformulated their brands and tout the fact that they no longer contain high fructose corn syrup.

One such product is Log Cabin syrup, which boasts this on their front label:

Log Cabin

Great, thought Bryan A., a Mouse Print* reader. Then he read the ingredients statement on the back:

*MOUSE PRINT:

Log Cabin back

“If a banner across the front trumpets ‘NO HIGH FRUCTOSE CORN SYRUP’ one doesn’t expect the first ingredient to be corn syrup,” explained Bryan. We agree.

There is, however, a difference between high fructose corn syrup and regular corn syrup.

“… corn starch is broken down into individual glucose molecules, the end product is corn syrup, which is essentially 100% glucose. To make high fructose corn syrup, enzymes are added to corn syrup in order to convert some of the glucose to another simple sugar called fructose. High fructose corn syrup is ‘high’ in fructose [thus making it sweeter] compared to the pure glucose that is in corn syrup.” — Food and Drug Administration.

We asked Pinnacle Foods, the maker of Log Cabin, twice to comment on this issue, and they did not respond.