ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Wednesday, January 10, 1996 TAG: 9601100113
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 8 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: WASHINGTON
SOURCE: ROBERT GREEN ASSOCIATED PRESS
Government rules that set the amount of peanuts in peanut butter, fruit in jelly and beef in canned stew may be overhauled or even abandoned.
Regulators at the Agriculture Department and the Food and Drug Administration say the standards for naming and labeling a wide range of foods need a closer look.
The regulators say many of the rules may be old-fashioned, denying food companies a chance to make new, healthier and more-convenient products, and denying shoppers a chance to buy them. Consumer advocates and parts of the food industry worry the review will pave the way for watered-down, adulterated versions of basic foods.
Right now, the government is just asking for opinions on whether the rules for defining foods should be kept, changed or thrown out.
``Our approach is that everything is on the table,'' said Betty Campbell, a top food-labeling official at the FDA. The agency gave notice of its planned review Dec. 29 in the Federal Register.
Regardless of any changes, labels would still have to list ingredients and nutritional values.
Still, mere mention of change has raised alarms.
``Without federal standards, it opens the field to a free-fire zone where people can do whatever they want, [such as] make a sweet-tasting paste of some sort, with coloring and sugar, and call it a jelly or jam or preserve,'' said Larry Davenport, president of the Atlanta-based International Jelly and Preserve Association.
Strawberry jelly now has to be nearly one-half strawberries to earn the name. Peanut butter has to have 90 percent peanuts. Beef stew must be 25 percent beef by weight.
The food standards began in 1938, when Americans cooked and canned a lot of foods, or at least remembered what it was to regularly eat something homemade.
Store-bought foods were supposed to bear some resemblance to the homemade recipes. Rules kept foods from being weighted down or diluted with water or stretched out with fillers. Fat and salt were welcome ingredients.
The world has changed.
``Busy, active consumers put a premium on convenience when purchasing foods,'' the FDA said in its notice, ``and this emphasis may have also altered their expectations relative to basic, staple food products.''
After all, many people say ``pass the butter'' but pass the margarine. Margarine can change its formula and still be called margarine. Butter has to be 80 percent butterfat and 20 percent water.
Dairy farmers might have done better in the long run if the butter definition had been less rigid, with some other, less harmful fats allowed, said Fergus Clydesdale, head of the food science department at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst.
``There is a magic,'' said Clydesdale, who is undecided on the issue. ``People associate a particular flavor and function with a particular name. Now people associate margarine with exactly what butter does, but that's taken a long time.''
Health concerns have already changed attitudes and some rules toward water, filler and labeling, too.
What used to be called ``ice milk'' can be called ``low-fat ice cream,'' the FDA has already determined. But the agency complains that each exemption requires a cumbersome and expensive special review.
Last month, the Agriculture Department proposed letting reduced-fat versions of hot dogs, ground meat and other meat products on the market - as long as the label said that water or filler were added. A broader look at standards, such as those for stew, is planned.
Michael Taylor, a former FDA official who runs meat inspections at the Agriculture Department, said shoppers may welcome the chance for less beef in their stew. Both he and the FDA have mentioned allowing the common term, such as beef stew or peanut butter, but requiring that the label tell the percentage of beef, peanuts or other key ingredient.
``Presumably, there's some point at which there's so little beef it's misleading inherently to call it beef stew, but what's magic about 25 percent?'' Taylor asked.
LENGTH: Medium: 79 linesby CNB