Consumer organizations are very necessary. They make sure that products comply with regulations and standards, that they are as advertised, and that they carry what they say they do. They compare prices, qualities and offers. And thanks to all this, from time to time they uncover a fraud that we would otherwise eat.
But who watches that consumer organizations stick to what they know about and what they are good for, that is, consumption? The problem arises when they go too far and appear as what they are not, a health, scientific or food authority; for example, when they venture to recommend what moldy foods can or should not be eaten, and they do so against the advice of health, scientific or food experts. But everything is said, not all the fault is of these organizations; Although sometimes they grow up and take their feet out of their pot to get into gardens that don’t belong to them, part of the problem is how the media present the opinions published by these entities as if they were science.
An example. A few days ago she touched the chocolate nougat. In its wildest version, some media published headlines like this: “An OCU study shows that most chocolate nougats are bad.” And there you will have many children who have found Christmas bitter, because their mothers have heard bells and have decided that if they buy their children chocolate nougat, they are almost poisoning them.
But not. There is no such study, nor does it prove anything, and calling something “good” or “bad” is not only very far from what a study, if it existed, could demonstrate, if it demonstrated anything, but it is also as debatable as everything that some consider good and others bad.
Image from pxhere.
Starting at the beginning, to the Organization of Consumers and Users (OCU), the protagonist of this news, It must be recognized that he has not labeled what he presents as a “study”, but as a “report” (although the word “study” later escapes them in the press release). There are many types of studies, and if it does not bear the surname “scientific” no one has to understand that it is. But from a study it is understood that it must always be exhaustive and rigorous. Because if it is not, it has other possible names. For example, “report”. A report can be anything. But a report does not prove anything, it only reports what the person who made it wants to report.
Half of this report is based on a tasting by “a group of pastry experts” who are not identified. The tasters criticize that the nougats are too sweet, that they do not shine much or do not smell enough, that they are not homogeneous, that they do not melt in the mouth, that they stick to the teeth, that they seem hard…
The work of professional tasters is very respectable. But it is still an opinion. There are those who love the candied fruit in the roscón, and others hate it. Broccoli has passionate supporters and deadly enemies. Many people love to bite into a shortbread that has almond pieces. Others of us hate this and prefer everything well crushed. Of course, tasters have a much more trained palate than the rest of the population. And precisely for this reason they cannot put themselves in the place of the rest of the population. The wine that Asunción sells to many people will seem delicious, while a sommelier would probably die in death throes if he tasted it. Is anyone surprised that pastry experts denigrate an industrial product?
The other half of the report is the one that gets into the garden that the OCU should avoid: value the ingredients according to what the person responsible for the report thinks. According to the OCU, “While a good chocolate only has cocoa butter as fat, in the case of nougats it is mixed with other types of vegetable fats of inferior organoleptic quality, such as sunflower oil, palm fat, or shea butter”. They keep saying that “only two of the chocolate nougats analyzed limit themselves to using cocoa butter, which is what it should be, avoiding those other strange fats and they are faithful to what a traditional chocolate should be”.
Well, I think we all understand that chocolate is one thing and chocolate nougat is another. That is why one is called only “chocolate” and the other “chocolate nougat”. The work of the OCU on this point It should be to inform us about whether there is any legal regulation regarding the ingredients allowed in chocolate nougat, and if any of the brands is breaking it.
Because talking about “strange” fats and “inferior organoleptic quality” is also subjective and tendentious. The main ingredients of cocoa butter are oleic, stearic, palmitic and linoleic fatty acids. Those of shea butter, oleic, stearic, linoleic and palmitic. Those of palm oil, palmitic, oleic, linoleic and stearic. And those of sunflower oil, linoleic, oleic, stearic and palmitic.
Cheaper, sure. But strangers? Inferior? Because it seems so to you. Health claims about different types of fats always simplify a reality that is much more complex, since demonstrating proven benefits is very complicated. For example, in Spain the benefits of olive oil are taken as a popular dogma, and in general those of unsaturated fatty acids (such as oleic and linoleic) versus saturated (palmitic and stearic).
If we only stick to the latter, cocoa butter has a more unfavorable profile (38% unsaturated fat) than palm oil (45%), shea butter (73%) and of course sunflower oil (90%). As for polyphenols, to which antioxidant properties are attributed, for example, shea butter has a phenolic content similar to that of virgin olive oil.
But it should be remembered that these dogmas do not exist in the scientific assessment of healthy qualities, that it is much more cautious than is popularly assumed (and what appears in media articles). The benefits of olive oil have been established primarily in epidemiological studies, often in the context of a diet, but as long as you substitute other saturated fats. And instead, the demonstrable links of cause (olive oil or its components) and effect (better health in general or in particular in some aspect) are much more difficult to establish, which is why, for example, the FDA (the FDA US food) talks about “supportive but inconclusive scientific evidence”. In Europe, the food safety authority (EFSA) endorses the benefits of polyphenols, but is more prudent with the effects on metabolic fat and sugar levels. Especially considering that the evil of saturated fat has been questioned in studies for the last few decades.
All this is summed up much more clearly: any other fat contained in the chocolate nougat that is not an oil rich in unsaturated fatty acids (olive, sunflower, etc.) is potentially going to be less healthy than a similar dose of these oils, according to classical scientific evidence.
To top all this off, the OCU undertakes it against an additive, E476 or polyglycerol polyricinoleate (PGPR), the one who dares to qualify as “not recommendable”, “inadvisable” and? “it can alter the mucosa and the intestinal flora” y “in the long run cause problems”.
Only none of the relevant expert authorities, based on the available science, endorses all of what the OCU says. According to EFSA, the PGPR “it is tolerated at high doses without adverse effects”, “There is no concern regarding genotoxicity or carcinogenicity” y “has no indication of significant adverse effects”, to such an extent that in 2017 this European authority more than tripled the acceptable daily dose, from 7.5 milligrams (mg) per kilo of weight to 25 mg per kilo, provided that the manufacture of this additive complies with the standards and does not contain impurities. The US FDA considers PGPR safe for human consumption, as does the joint commission of the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO).
And then, what about that alteration of the flora that the OCU says? This comes from a 2015 study in mice. I think there is no need to explain that, if mouse studies are often not directly applicable to humans, let alone in the case of dietary studies, dealing with species with such different dietary needs. In 2017 another study found a possible alteration of the microbiota with different emulsifiers, not with PGPR, in a simulation of the human flora in vitro.
But in 2018 a review that reanalyzed previous studies concluded: “These studies were conducted at high doses that have no relevance to current levels consumed in the diet. [en Estados Unidos]». Furthermore, he added: “Internationally recognized established toxicological testing guidelines do not support subtle changes in gut microbiota composition as a toxicological conclusion”, since, the authors explained, such changes often only reflect an adaptation to dietary modifications without any adverse effects. And they concluded: “Thus, the results of these studies are difficult to interpret and extrapolate to humans, and are not supported by the previous safety conclusions of international food safety authorities.”.
In short, disqualifying products because they contain fats that are perfectly equivalent to others that one thinks should be in their place, or because they contain an additive recognized as safe by the world’s leading food safety authorities, it is spreading harmful malicious propaganda against products that are perfectly regulatory, legal, and innocuous. Right on. I don’t think anyone needs to be told that eating a tablet of chocolate nougat a day throughout the year would not exactly be the healthiest habit. But as the saying goes, once a year… A Christmas without chocolate nougat is like a tree without decorations. And buy the one your own expert tasters like best.