Scrutinising labels is one of the constants of our work - and never has the need been greater.

Take vitamin waters. These innocuous-sounding products are sold in plain livery and mention trendy but obscure fruits amongst their ingredients - dragonfruit anyone? Bottled water plus vitamins must be good: the catch is these drinks are filled with sugar. The ones we looked at had between 6 to 8 teaspoons per bottle.

Fortunately, there's an easy way to work out the sugar content. Every four grams of sugar is equal to a teaspoon, so you just take the grams of sugar in the nutrition panel and divide by four to get the teaspoons.

These drinks just sound like Fanta for a modern health-obsessed age. And there's not much fruit either, less than one percent in some cases or even none at all. A glass of tap water and a piece of fruit will give you all the hydration and vitamins you need at a fraction of the cost of vitamin waters.

In the age of the new frugality tap water may be back. I gather staff in upmarket New York restaurants went to endless lengths to make their well-heeled female customers say "tap" water to show what cheapskates they were for not ordering expensive bottled water. Nowadays the restaurants are probably grateful for anyone coming through the doors, whatever they drink.

Country-of-origin labelling has also caught our attention. Wattie's tomato sauce, depending on whether it's in a can or a squeeze bottle, can be made here or in Australia - probably from ingredients sourced anywhere.

Evidently, "made in New Zealand" means it is grown or produced here but from ingredients anywhere in the world. "Product of New Zealand" means it was grown or produced here and made here.

The medieval scholastic philosophers used to debate how many angels could fit on a pinhead - not many if they consumed a 21st century diet of vitamin drinks and other processed or fast foods.

That we need to make these fine linguistic distinctions shows that we have lost touch with the fundamental basis of the food chain.

David Naulls

Editor
Consumer Magazine

More from consumer.org.nz

• Country-of-origin labelling - we examine the arguments against it
• Vitamin water - we take a look at the ingredients

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