In the recent You Pulse magazine, Summer Edition 2008, an advertisement was published by Solal making a number of unsubstantiated claims, and furthermore, run contrary to a number of the ASA regulations.
The advert stated, among other:
Why your diet doesn’t supply enough micronutrients for health, disease prevention and long life. |
Can you believe this?
Read on . . .This advert claims that a balanced diet is insufficient to supply an adequate supply of minerals, nutrients and vitamins, and that therefore, taking a mineral supplement is essential. In fact, there is no evidence to show that even if the nutrients in certain foods have decreased; that there are insufficient levels supplied in a balanced diet considering that a balanced diet oversupplies most of the nutrients required.
Indeed, an analysis of the data to which these claims relate, concluded:
“[W]e suggest that any real declines are generally most easily explained by changes in cultivated varieties between 1950 and 1999, in which there may be trade-offs between yield and nutrient content”.[1]
Furthermore, analytical methods have changed and that the new ones more accurately determine the target substance and not a whole lot of similar or related things. Fat, for e.g., was basically anything that was soluble in light petroleum ether, now it is more likely to be a specific tri-glyceride, eliminating the other "solubles" thus yielding a lower value!
[1] Davis DR, Epp MD, Riordan HD. Changes in USDA food composition data for 43 garden crops, 1950 to 1999. J Am Coll Nutr 2004 Dec;23(6):669-82.
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