Labelling on breakfast cereals exposes truth behind oats

RECENTLY I wrote that consumer scams are designed to mislead or part you from your money, and many are permitted under marketing hyperbole (“Free-for-all mattress industry a scammers’ paradise”, March 7).

I looked into the labelling of the breakfast cereal oats. Tiger Consumer Brands’ Jungle Oats (various variants) and Pioneer Foods’ Bokomo Oats Instant state that they’re “100% Wholegrain Pure Oats” prominently, but in smaller print on the back of the package under ingredients says it’s made from “oat flake” and “gluten”, that is wheat, barley or rye.

A popular “health food” (read: expensive) brand sold in supermarkets, pharmacies and health shops says “oats is naturally free from wheat” but the ingredients states: “oats, gluten”. Others including Woolworths, Pick n Pay, Checkers and Spar house brands also have “oats” containing gluten, but at least they don’t claim it’s “100% pure wholegrain oats”.

This is significant to me because as a non-coeliac gluten sensitivity sufferer I’m trying to find an alternative for gluten-containing products, which is difficult because many processed foods and snacks contain wheat. My internet search said “oats are technically gluten-free since they aren’t a type of wheat, barley or rye containing the protein gluten; oats have a protein called avenins”. While the medical evidence may not be conclusive, it appears avenins may be safe for people with coeliac diseases and gluten sensitivity.

Last week I e-mailed Tiger Brands about the exact composition of Jungle Oats, which I have been eating since I was a child. It replied that it would “further assist”, but has not done so.

What we have here is a food industry where “oats” are not pure oats but a combination of oat grains mixed with other grains, typically ubiquitous wheat, which is commercially known as “oat flakes” (Tiger Brands confusingly calls it “alpha flakes”). How many other foods are affected by similar deception?

The Department of Health’s Food Control directorate “is responsible for ensuring the safety of food based on the basic needs of communities and the right of South Africans to make informed food choices without being misled”. Its food labelling regulations (R146) quantitative ingredient declarations (Quid) states: “When labelling places emphasis on one or more ingredients (for example “100% pure oats”), the ingoing percentage should be declared in brackets (near) the words, illustrations or graphics referring to the ingredient/s.”

From what I’ve seen, “oats” is a generic term for an oat-flavoured cereal, and it appears certain brands – Tiger Brands (Jungle Oats variants) in particular and to a lesser extent Pioneer (Bokomo Instant) that claim 100% pure wholegrain oats – are not complying with Quid.

In the post-truth era not all is as it seems, even with traditional food staples. And Food Control’s claim we have a right to make informed food choices without being misled is hollow because enforcement is absent in a near free-for-all environment. Thomas Johnson Lansdowne