TRUTH 48: PERCENTAGES GET YOU NOWHERE Nutrient analyses, reflected as Nutrition Facts on labels, are another regulatory gimmick to create false confidence in commercially processed foods. Proving that a particular nutrient is at a certain level in a food is meaningless in terms of optimal nutrition. Not only is it irrational scientifically and philosophically, as shown in Truth #44, but additionally, properly analyzed diets meeting regulatory guidelines for percentages have caused severe deficiencies, disease, and death. There is certainly nothing wrong in knowing the nutrition facts about a food. It is good that manufacturers are required to put this on labels. But these facts should not be given more meaning than they deserve. Nutrient listings and percentages may make consumers feel that the food has come out of a nuclear physics lab, but that is far from the case. These percentages are about as crude of a measure of the health merits of a food as measuring the length of a virus with a yardstick. Percentage of protein, fat, fiber, ash and other nutrients tells only a partial story. For example, there are over forty essential nutrients known and over fifty under investigation. How can making sure a food contains the appropriate amounts of only a handful of these merit a 100% complete claim? Whats more, NRC testing to establish the standards for minimums of nutrients is cursory and haphazard. For example, in the cat, phosphorus and manganese requirements were NRC tested directly, but sodium, chloride, iodine, copper, and selenium levels were merely extrapolated from values in other species. In other words, a 100% complete diet for cats could be based on something like sodium levels for aardvarks and selenium levels for newts. Maybe that s hyperbole, but no matter. Each species, and even each member of a species, is biochemically individual. Extrapolating and guessing about percentages cannot add up to complete knowledge like the 100% complete claim requires. If producers wish to claim their food is X% digestible, or that it contains certain amounts of nutrients, or that it has been subjected to an AAFCO Feeding Trial, that is fine. But dont you believe it when they take an incredible leap (actually a fall) in logic and then claim their food is complete and balanced and should be fed exclusively. Analyses, digestibility studies and AAFCO Feeding Trials are a futile life-support system for the hopelessly terminal 100% complete claim. Dont be deceived. The 100% complete claim is not good science. It is a shameless attempt at credibility by mere fraternization with the distinguished coattails of science. If science is the sun, the 100% complete claim is Pluto. Most importantly, reliance on such dubious information and the false science of digestibility, AAFCO studies, and NRC percentages distracts from the importance of natural nutrition. It fosters dependence and false confidence in commercial interests. Finally, let me mention the waste of hundreds of thousands of dollars spent by manufacturers on testing and licensing to be able to make the complete and balanced claim. A huge regulatory and laboratory industry now exists to assure the perpetuation of 100% completeness. Who pays for this? You do. This deceptive myth occupies an increasing economic space in your can or bag of pet food.
Posted on: Tue, 18 Feb 2014 00:59:55 +0000
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