UK food labelling and fibre count

From the UK Food Labelling & Standards Division - Food Standards Agency:

"There are regulations that stipulate when and how the nutrition information panel must be presented on the food label. In the UK, the term 'carbohydrate' as it appears in the nutrition information panel refers to carbohydrates that are metabolised by man (including sugar alcohols, such as sorbitol, mannitol). Fibre, on UK labels, does not form part of the total 'carbohydrate' value and sometimes it is listed as a completely distinct item. In effect therefore the 'carbohydrate' value does not include the 'fibre' value.

I am aware that nutrition information panels are different in the US. My
understanding is that in the US the 'Total Carbohydrate' value appearing in a nutrition information panel on a US label includes the fibre content of the product, hence the advice to deduct 'Dietary fiber' from 'Total Carbohydrate' in the US."

Climb down from the bran wagon

In years to come, the past couple of decades of the twentieth century may well come to be known as 'The Bran Age'; a time when it seemed that most of the diseases of Western civilisation were being blamed on a lack of fibre in the diet, and we were all being exhorted to eat as much as possible to cure or prevent those diseases. Diseases blamed on a lack of dietary fibre include: intestinal diseases such as cancer of the colon, appendicitis, constipation and irritable bowel syndrome as well as coronary heart disease, diabetes, obesity, deep vein thrombosis, varicose veins, hiatus hernia and gallstones.

Full article: Second Opinions - Barry Groves, PhD

The Tail End of the Fiber Myth

Friday, February 02, 2001
Column by Steven Milloy

If you've been shoveling down high-fiber cereals every morning in hopes of preventing colon cancer, you can stop.

The 30-year-old notion that cereal fiber reduces colon cancer risk is turning out to be yet another government-sanctioned myth. It may be time for the Food and Drug Administration to butt out of our colons.

Full article: foxnews.com