The new EU regulation on nutrition and health claims: comments related to experiences from the Swedish Code of Practice

The new European Union (EU) regulation on nutrition and health claims came into force on 19 January 2007. This means that the same rules for use of such claims in advertisements, labelling and presentation of foods, including food supplements, will now be implemented throughout the EU. Some countries have had Codes of Practices allowing certain health claims. Experiences from such Codes, such as in Sweden since 1990, will be useful in implementing the new regulation. When used in a responsible way according to the regulation, health claims may be important in driving product development and assisting consumers in making healthy choices

Relationship Between Microstructure and in Vitro Digestibility of Starch in Precooked Leguminous Seed Flours

Precooked flours (PCFs) were prepared by milling boiled and freeze-dried red kidney beans, white beans and lentils. As demonstrated by scanning electron microscopy, PCFs were rich in relatively large particles which contained cell structures filled with starch. In contrast, flours from raw seeds contained a large number of free starch granules. The in vitro a-amylolysis rate ofPCFs was remarkably low, but increased after physical and chemical treatments of the flours. Homogenization resulted in the largest increase of hydrolysis rate. The susceptibility to enzymatic hydrolysis was also enhanced when PCFs were preincubated with pepsin or submitted to additional boiling. These treatments promoted evident alterations in the microscopic appearance of the cotyledon cell walls of the PCFs, changes that ranged from an apparently thinner surface (pepsin effect), to an almost complete disruption (homogenization effect). A flour prepared from boiled and vacuum-dried red beans showed Jess structural integrity and greater rate of amylolysis than the corresponding PCF, indicating that the drying procedure may influence the microstructural and digestibility features of precooked legumi nous materials. Neither cell walls nor starch granules were observed after suspending PCFs in 2N KOH, giving support to the use of alkaline pre-treatment for the evaluation of to tal starch content of PCFs by enzymatic procedures. The present results suggest the persistence of starch granules enclosed in cotyledon cells as a primary reason for the limited enzymatic availability of starch in PCFs

Health claims in the labelling and marketing of food products:: the Swedish food sector's Code of Practice in a European perspective

Since 1990 certain health claims in the labelling and marketing of food products have been allowed in Sweden within the food sector's Code of Practice. The rules were developed in close dialogue with the authorities. The legal basis was a decision by the authorities not to apply the medicinal products’ legislation to “foods normally found on the dinner table” provided the rules defined in the Code were followed. The Code of Practice lists nine well-established diet–health relationships eligible for generic disease risk reduction claims in two steps and general rules regarding nutrient function claims. Since 2001, there has also been the possibility for using “product-specific physiological claims (PFP)”, subject to premarketing evaluation of the scientific dossier supporting the claim. The scientific documentation has been approved for 10 products with PFP, and another 15 products have been found to fulfil the Code's criteria for “low glycaemic index”. In the third edition of the Code, active since 2004, conditions in terms of nutritional composition were set, i.e. “nutrient profiles”, with a general reference to the Swedish National Food Administration's regulation on the use of a particular symbol, i.e. the keyhole symbol. Applying the Swedish Code of practice has provided experience useful in the implementation of the European Regulation on nutrition and health claims made on foods, effective from 2007

Definition and analysis of dietary fibre in the context of food carbohydrates

No abstract available