False information from company - Advertising Standards?

[Deleted User]

Thanks for the replies. I likely won't pursue this, even though it's aggravating to be expected to swallow a bunch of lies when enquiring about the ingredients of a product I have bought for years.

As for sugar vs sweetener; I went from consuming around 50 - 90g of added sugar per day, down to 20 - 30g (in tea and coffee only), and experienced at least two clear health benefits within weeks.

The Silverspoon hero who responded to me on my last email automatically assumed that I was some hysterical MSM consumer who had become panicked by the recent report that aspartame had been classified as a carcinogen, and patronisingly tried to reassure me that the aspartame levels in other products were much higher (this latter by citing a value for another product as 50 times higher than actual fact). The truth is that I made my enquiry three months before this news broke and Silver Spoon spent the intervening time fabricating statistics and expecting me to accept them.

RefluentBeans

[Deleted User] said:

Thanks for the replies. I likely won't pursue this, even though it's aggravating to be expected to swallow a bunch of lies when enquiring about the ingredients of a product I have bought for years.

As for sugar vs sweetener; I went from consuming around 50 - 90g of added sugar per day, down to 20 - 30g (in tea and coffee only), and experienced at least two clear health benefits within weeks.

The Silverspoon hero who responded to me on my last email automatically assumed that I was some hysterical MSM consumer who had become panicked by the recent report that aspartame had been classified as a carcinogen, and patronisingly tried to reassure me that the aspartame levels in other products were much higher (this latter by citing a value for another product as 50 times higher than actual fact). The truth is that I made my enquiry three months before this news broke and Silver Spoon spent the intervening time fabricating statistics and expecting me to accept them.

Again - as others have said I don’t think this is a conspiracy. I think the data wasn’t available to the customer service agent, and tried to figure it out from whatever they have in front of them. More than likely a customer service error.

I think it’s unfair to expect a precise gram amount of each ingredient in a product because it’s still a recipe. You can work out it’s less than 1.1g. The information publicly available is more than likely accurate. 

You could of course escalate to the more senior customer service people and ensure that all future enquiries are dealt with in a more accurate manner. But unlikely the ASA will intervene as it’s not advertising, but FSA will likely care a bit more and potentially investigate if you think that there’s a potential issue. 

km1500

"When I wrote back explaining how these figures are wrong, I simply received an email saying, 'The figures are correct."

you have been told categorically that the figure of 25% is correct in which case I would definitely go to ASA because they are advertising it at much less than this

[Deleted User]

RefluentBeans said:

[Deleted User] said:

Thanks for the replies. I likely won't pursue this, even though it's aggravating to be expected to swallow a bunch of lies when enquiring about the ingredients of a product I have bought for years.

As for sugar vs sweetener; I went from consuming around 50 - 90g of added sugar per day, down to 20 - 30g (in tea and coffee only), and experienced at least two clear health benefits within weeks.

The Silverspoon hero who responded to me on my last email automatically assumed that I was some hysterical MSM consumer who had become panicked by the recent report that aspartame had been classified as a carcinogen, and patronisingly tried to reassure me that the aspartame levels in other products were much higher (this latter by citing a value for another product as 50 times higher than actual fact). The truth is that I made my enquiry three months before this news broke and Silver Spoon spent the intervening time fabricating statistics and expecting me to accept them.

Again - as others have said I don’t think this is a conspiracy. I think the data wasn’t available to the customer service agent, and tried to figure it out from whatever they have in front of them. More than likely a customer service error.

I think it’s unfair to expect a precise gram amount of each ingredient in a product because it’s still a recipe. You can work out it’s less than 1.1g. The information publicly available is more than likely accurate. 

You could of course escalate to the more senior customer service people and ensure that all future enquiries are dealt with in a more accurate manner. But unlikely the ASA will intervene as it’s not advertising, but FSA will likely care a bit more and potentially investigate if you think that there’s a potential issue. 

I quite agree, it's not a conspiracy, rather an untrained customer service rep who, to top it off, is thicker than mince. I mean, you don't have to be a chemist to know that 25% of a product cannot be aspartame, nor that Diet Cola doesn't contain 14g of aspartame per bottle. They could have Googled the latter in 5 seconds, as I did, but apparently that's too much trouble.

km1500 said:

"When I wrote back explaining how these figures are wrong, I simply received an email saying, 'The figures are correct."

you have been told categorically that the figure of 25% is correct in which case I would definitely go to ASA because they are advertising it at much less than this

That's one way of looking at it, yes!

tightauldgit

People working in CS aren't always renowned for their maths skills but I wondered where they got the 14g number from. Googling it now only leads back to this thread. 

It's not aspartame per can which is 2-300 mg

It's not sugar in a can which is 39g

The only reference i can find to 14g is a study that says we should cut our recommended daily sugar intake to that number.

14 is the number of cans of diet coke you would have to drink in a day to reach the limit of what's 'safe'

Other than that I'm totally puzzled by what numbers they've combined to come up with 14g as the answer

Interesting that Diet Coke nutritional facts says it contains 0g protein - is that a rounding thing or do they not count aspartame as a protein? 

Alderbank

tightauldgit said:

Interesting that Diet Coke nutritional facts says it contains 0g protein - is that a rounding thing or do they not count aspartame as a protein? 

Proteins are long, often very long, chains of essential amino acids. There is no strict definition but we usually define proteins as chains of at least 50 amino acids. 
Shorter chains than this have different properties and are known as peptides, not proteins. Aspartame is made from the shortest possible chain consisting of only two amino acids (aspartic acid and phenylalanine) so Diet Coke are correct, it shouldn't be classed as a protein.

This thread is becoming increasingly esoteric.

tightauldgit

Alderbank said:

tightauldgit said:

Interesting that Diet Coke nutritional facts says it contains 0g protein - is that a rounding thing or do they not count aspartame as a protein? 

Proteins are long, often very long, chains of essential amino acids. There is no strict definition but we usually define proteins as chains of at least 50 amino acids. 
Shorter chains than this have different properties and are known as peptides, not proteins. Aspartame is made from the shortest possible chain consisting of only two amino acids (aspartic acid and phenylalanine) so Diet Coke are correct, it shouldn't be classed as a protein.

This thread is becoming increasingly esoteric.

In which case what's the source of the protein in the Silver Spoon? Is it 50% sugar, 66% sweetener and 2% sausage meat? 

I'd argue it started fairly esoteric anyway

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head

Alderbank said:

This thread is becoming increasingly esoteric.

I hope you are anaspeptic, frasmotic, even compunctious to have caused such pericombobulation to those, such as I, who didn't know what esoteric meant. 

RefluentBeans

tightauldgit said:

Alderbank said:

tightauldgit said:

Interesting that Diet Coke nutritional facts says it contains 0g protein - is that a rounding thing or do they not count aspartame as a protein? 

Proteins are long, often very long, chains of essential amino acids. There is no strict definition but we usually define proteins as chains of at least 50 amino acids. 
Shorter chains than this have different properties and are known as peptides, not proteins. Aspartame is made from the shortest possible chain consisting of only two amino acids (aspartic acid and phenylalanine) so Diet Coke are correct, it shouldn't be classed as a protein.

This thread is becoming increasingly esoteric.

In which case what's the source of the protein in the Silver Spoon? Is it 50% sugar, 66% sweetener and 2% sausage meat? 

I'd argue it started fairly esoteric anyway

Unless anyone can find it anywhere, there is no official (legal) definition or FSA/ASA guidance on the classification of proteins. Scientifically the line is far blurrier and depends on if you approach it from a chemical or biological perspective. There is no ‘rule’ that requires that after X number of peptide bonds we call it a protein. In the same way that technically enzymes are just very large proteins, but we prefer to call them enzymes. 

Thus, I would argue that aspartame could be considered a protein if you define a protein as having any peptide bonds. But I can also see that almost everyone in the scientific community and in the general public wouldn’t consider it a protein. 

There’s s lot of confusion about the food groups, this is just one of them! Doesn’t help that scientists aren’t always clear with their terminology, and that the information online is often filled with anecdotal information on dieting and nutritional advice. 

Alderbank

RefluentBeans I agree with everything you said except perhaps for 'the general public wouldn’t consider it a protein.'
In the part of the world where I live the general public wouldn't give a f*** whether aspartame is a protein or a bipeptide.

Raw beet pulp contains vegetable proteins as well as sucrose. Silver Spoon's factory is a food factory, not a pharmaceutical factory. I suspect the protein is just residual stuff not refined out.
My bag of Sainsbury's granulated sugar, which doesn't contain any aspartame, is labelled 'Protein <0.5%'