Buzz
The FDA has made a significant announcement this week. Food manufacturers highlighting heart health benefits on their packaging must now, by law, make minor adjustments to their wording—prepare for this surprising update!
The headline: FDA Moves to Revoke Soy Health Claim (CNN)
The story: “Today, we are proposing a rule to revoke a health claim for soy protein and heart disease,” the director of the FDA’s Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition wrote in a press release. Previously, labels on products such as tofu could feature statements like this:
Diets low in saturated fat and cholesterol that include 25 grams of soy protein a day may reduce the risk of heart disease. One serving of [name of food] provides __ grams of soy protein.
This health claim was among the FDA’s 12 Authorized Health Claims, which the agency considers to have “significant scientific agreement” and are unlikely to be altered. This marks the first instance where the FDA has revoked such a status for any claim.
The decision wasn’t based on soy becoming unhealthy; instead, the scientific evidence is now less definitive than when the claim was initially approved. Tofu remains a safe choice, but experts are divided on whether its protein offers specific heart disease protection.
For soy product marketers, there’s still good news: using an Qualified Health Claim to highlight your product’s health benefits is still permissible. While these claims require FDA approval, the criteria are less stringent. Here’s an example of a soybean oil claim, currently on the books, that could be adapted for soy protein:
Supportive but inconclusive scientific evidence suggests that consuming approximately 1 ½ tablespoons (19.5 grams) of soybean oil daily may lower the risk of coronary heart disease. To achieve this potential benefit, soybean oil should replace an equivalent amount of saturated fat without increasing daily caloric intake. One serving of this product contains [x] grams of soybean oil.
There you go. Surely, this revised phrasing will help customers gain a clearer scientific understanding of soy’s impact on heart health. That’s how it’s supposed to work, isn’t it?
For now, the revocation of the claim remains a proposed rule. If you have strong feelings about how your tofu labels are worded, make sure to share your feedback with the FDA by January 16.
The take-away: If you’re someone who pays close attention to health claims on soy product packaging, expect some slight adjustments in the near future. For everyone else, life goes on as usual.
