One reason would be that it is fraudulent. That is sufficient for me.
Believe it or not, I’ve met, (and even snogged,) exactly the sort of person that the CSPI is trying to reach.
She was actively trying to limit her consumption of fatty foods, on doctor’s orders-- but had a daily ritual of getting a a two-scooper at a nearby gelato place. She had a deeply held belief that gelato was practically health food – “Not like that stuff at Dairy Queen or Baskin Robbins.” She argued that if it were substantially fatty, she asserted, “People in this neighborhood wouldn’t buy it! We’re only a couple blocks away from Capers, for god’s sake.” (Capers is specialty health-food & organic produce market.) It was damned near impossible to reason her out of this-- she kept insisting that it was a “quality” place, and that they used only “pure” ingredients – and it didn’t help at all that the wage-earner behind the counter consistently agreed with her. In her mind, “PURE” = “WHOLESOME, HEALTHY” = “FAT FREE” Pure cream? Bring it on!
Yes, she was disappointed when the light finally dawned and she was made to understand that ice cream is a fatty food, even if you call it gelato. In the supermarket, she diligently checked the nutritional information panel on things she bought, though, and screened them for fat content.
While common sense might be enough for most of us to be able to make sensible decisions, there are people out there who really do need things broken down for them. Especially in trendy ice-cream parlours that represent themselves as purveyors of quality product, with emphasis on purity and “all-natural” ingredients. Some people really think that “all-natural” = “healthy”.
As tempting as it might be to say that they deserve whatever consequence their ignorance earns them, a lot of these folks are nice enough sorts, and if it means making information that seems bleeding obvious to most us available to them in black and white, I’m all for it. It confirms at a glance what some of us have gone to great lengths to try to communicate, and not always with success.
I don’t know about you but I’m not about to take CSPI at face value. I’d rather have that fat content verified by an independent party
Now first off the man is making the saturated fat seem to stand separate from the total fat in grams. It doesn’t work that way. The 7 ounce serving has 11 grams of fat 7 of which are saturated. FDA link #1
Now 7 ounces of water is about 200 ml which is about 200 g. Milk is heavier than water (lets say 10%) so the mass of the desert is 220 g. Work with me here, that means we basically have fat making up 5% of the total mass of the ice cream. **That makes it 95% fat free according to the FDA **FDA link #2
Quite the scientist with his volume and mass units all mixed up. 
Nevertheless, if something is advertised as poop-free, there’s an expectation that it contains no poop, not 5% poop.
Where I shop, anyway.
According to the nutritional information (.PDF) posted at Cold Stone Creamery’s website, their 199g serving of Sweet Cream Yogurt Cream contains 0 grams of fat. I’m looking forward to seeing if they stand by that, now.
Well, now you’ve gotten me to turn my keyboard over too. And much to my surprise, it says:
"You may experience symptoms such as prolonged or recurring throbbing, aching, tingling, burning sensation, or stiffness caused by use of this keyboard"
Damn! None of those things have happened to me!
Hey! My keyboard is only six months old and has no warning. Not on the front. Not on the back. Not on the power cable. Can I sue HP for failing to warn me?
Tinkertoy, this has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with anything you’ve posted about in this thread, but if I loaned you my copy of James Joyce’s Ulysses to make a manual transcription of, could you get me back by paying off my student loan?
True but we’re dealing with fat here. Apparently it’s 0.5 g per serving size (typically 100g)
Of course when people start expecting 24 oz of ice cream (~ 1.5 lbs) such as the
to be low in calories they should be gently punted of the boat with a nice smile and wave.
Yes, but we’re talking about a group with an obvious agenda here. Was it really a case of Cold Stone passing off low fat frozen yogurt or did CSPI run the test on low fat frozen yogurt and claim it was from a fat free sample? Was their sample just frozen yogurt or did it contain cookies, candy, etc? If it’s a case of Cold Stone pulling a fast one, why has no one else picked up on it?
An agenda? Everybody’s got an agenda.
Cold Stone Creamery has a simple agenda - to have as many people as possible consume their products. There’s nothing wrong with that.
Do you imply that CSPI has some obscure agenda beyond making it easier for people to make informed dietary choices? I am unaware of any part of their agenda which would make a barefaced lie attractive to them. How would it benefit CSPI if, en masse, everyone decided ice cream was far too dangerous a product to ever consider eating, even as an occasional treat? How does this compare with the dollars-and-cents benefit that Cold Stone Creamery might see from misrepresenting a low-fat product as fat-free.
Maybe you think that have some bolshy political motive for attacking corporate interests? Maybe they’ve all invested heavily in grub-and-berry concerns?
No, they just want people to be able to make informed decisions, and don’t think that an “informed decision” implies any radical departure from the status quo.
Look at the article itself in its proper context. It’s an aggregate of information intended for people who are trying to eat better. It would be very easy to say “Don’t eat ice-cream at all if you want to keep fit. Simple.” People know that’s an option. The article is written from the assumption that people enjoy eating ice-cream, have no desire to adopt a spartan lifestyle based entirely on outright denial and sacrifice, but would rather like some inkling of how the various options available compare against each other.
Their comment about Cold Stone Creamery, verbatim:
(Note that the actual quote is quite clear about the fat content – that “Eleven grams of fat and seven grams of saturated fat” bit is a quote from an article about this article. Also, you’ll notice that they provide a chart of the calorie-and-fat contents of the various toppings.) Surely you acknowledge that a significant segment of the population would be interested to know that a “fat-free” serving at one establishment actually contains more fat than a regular serving at another. I’d be interested to know why you’re so eager to assume that the CSPI would want to open themselves up to litigation by lying about their findings.
People are reacting as though CSPI is lobbying to shut ice cream parlours down. They’re just doing what they do – making information easily available to people who want it.
What a tempest in a teapot this is. Why no frothing at the mouth when they published similar reports about other comestibles, like pizza or popcorn?
Maybe because, in a slow news week, “Consumer Group Announces-- Ice Cream Is FATTENING!” is an attractive silly-season headline. Look at the article in context, though, and it’s pretty damned unremarkable.
I mean to imply that CSPI may be sensationalizing the yogurt story just a bit. All we have to go on is that they claim to have tested a sample of non-fat frozen yogurt. I think it’s a bit odd that they’re so far the only ones to make such a claim.
No, that’s not fat free of course, though Grey pointed out earlier it’s considered low-fat. Problem is, their website makes no mention of low-fat frozen yogurt. Could be a new product line and their site hasn’t been updated yet. If so, it’s possible that CSPI wasn’t aware of the new line and simply ordered “sweet cream frozen yogurt”, assuming it would be the fat-free kind. There’s too many possible mitigating circumstances at work in yogurt story.
What the hell, Jeff? First off, read the original article. It’s not particularly sensationalist*, and doesn’t represent the “yogurt story” as anything more than an anecdotal incident.
They asked for a product called “Sweet Cream Yogurt Cream”, and were given something that all involved parties were satisfied was Sweet Cream Yogurt Cream. The company represents this product in unequivocal terms as containing 0% fat*. A person who desires to limit their fat intake would likely view this product favourably against a gleefully decadent product, like, for instance, Ben and Jerry’s Chocolate Fudge Brownie Ice Cream, although a same-sized portion of that contains a ‘mere’ 9.3 grams of fat, (6 grams of saturated fat.) Personally, I think that providing false information which may lead someone to “make do” with frozen yogurt when Chocolate Fudge Brownie Ice Cream would be a better fit for their diet ought to be a flogging offence. But then, I loves me my ice cream.
*Remember Grey’s red-herring flavoured FDA Link#2:
I doubt that many people would consider the possibilty that a company might provide nutritional information about a product, “discontinue it,” replace it with a “new line” bearing the same name, and continue to provide the old information to people asking about this completely different product, to be “possible mitigating circumstance.” It takes a lot less industry to conform to FDA regulations with regard to making nutritional information available than it does to put the product in the store and over the counter.
Since the measured fat content of the dispensed product isn’t anywhere near the same ballpark as any of the other products that they sell, I think it’s reasonable to say that it’s unlikely that the server simply dished up the wrong scoop.
That leaves the possibilty of a flawed analysis on the part of the independent testers, but, since printing such a claim leaves them wide open for a lawsuit, should it happen to be false, I’m fairly confident that they are sure of their information.
As I said before, I’m interested to see what Cold Stone Creamery’s side of the story is. They’ve had a full week to state their case, so I doubt it’s a simple, “Our frozen yogurt actually is fat-free, like we said.”
Why? Most people just take it as granted that FDA-mandated nutritional information provided by companies is going to be reasonably accurate. How often do you think individual products get submitted for analysis? Maybe nobody has said anything about it so far, because this is the first time it’s come to anyone’s attention.
*(I say not particularly sensationalist, because their writers are obviously trying for popular appeal. If they presented the same content using New Scientist’s style guide, it would hold a lot more appeal for me, but then I’m not their demographic.) This bit, for instance, makes me wince:
Well, yeah. It’s a Banana Split, for cryin’ out loud.
I didn’t say anything about the fat-free yogurt being discontinued. Cold Stone can’t offer both a fat-free yogurt and a low-fat yogurt?
Like you’ve said, it’s been a week. I would have thought that by now someone would have at least announced they were conducting tests to verify CSPI’s claim.