Have you ever seen something on a label that made you want to e-mail the company and ask “where the heck did you come up with this?!” One Sunday morning, not too long ago, I made these whole wheat pancakes because Nick was “craving pancakes” (they were good, but sort of salty in my opinion. If you choose to use this recipe, maybe cut the sodium in half. Unless you are like Nick and love the extra salty taste in your baked goods!).
As I was spreading the Smart Balance margarine on the pancakes I noticed something strange….
Since when is there a Daily Value for DHA and EPA? I wasn’t aware that there was one at all. So of course I e-mailed the company. I have e-mailed Smart Balance before and they’ve always been really great about getting back to me. This time was no different;
To answer your question about the EPA/DHA, you are correct in that no standard of omega 3 from the US government has been issued. We base our RDA of omega 3s on a general consensus from Nutritionist/Dietitians and calculate our EPA/DHA based upon the nutritional information of our ingredients.
So the answer indicates that there really isn’t a Daily Value for EPA and DHA, so why does it say “Daily Value 160 mg?” Isn’t this false advertising? Shouldn’t there be some type of asterisk that indicates there is no daily value, but that this is just a general recommendation? I’ve seen this on fish oil supplements before and it just goes to show you there really isn’t much oversight on labels. I would actually argue that a better recommendation would be 500 mg. But, no one asked me I mean if you are going to put a “Daily Value” for EPA and DHA on a label, make it a little higher than 160mg, that’s simply NOT enough! Even Dr. Oz recommends 600 mg DHA (alone) per day….and who doesn’t trust the saint Dr. Oz?!?!
Question: Have you ever been stumped by a label? Have you ever e-mailed the company for answers?
Actually about two months ago I e-mailed a well-known vitamin company to ask where they got their information on Daily Values for children under age 4. They had no clue. They said they would get back to me. I still haven’t heard a thing….
