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The Hot Pot

The Hot Pot is a goulash of news, opinions and advice about designing food products and other issues affecting our industry. Its moderator and sometimes contributor is Lynn A. Kuntz, editor of Food Product Design. A lifetime of food-industry experience, first in the trenches and currently via the written word, has shaped her knowledge base and her opinions―and she's not afraid to use either of them.

DHA Isn't DHA Say Lawyers

October 7, 2011 By Lynn Kuntz Comments

Posted in Blog, Advertising Claims, Beverages, Brain Health, Business, Children, Dairy, Docosahexaenoic Acid (DHA), Fats/Oils, Fatty Acids, Functional Foods, Health Claims, Healthy Foods, Kellogg Company, Keebler, Labeling, Life's DHA, Milk, Omega-3s, Organic, Regulatory, Nutraceuticals

Did you know the fatty-acid molecule docosahexaenoic acid (DHA), 22:6(n-3), isn’t always a long-chain PUFA, but instead it’s sometimes a short-chain fatty acid? That’s one of the allegations of a couple of lawsuits now pending against Dean Foods/Whitewave Foods, regarding the company’s DHA-fortified milk products.

I read that interesting claim after the Chicago Tribune reported an Illinois class action suit that said, “the packaging of Dean's Horizon Organic Milk products includes claims that are not supported by science and mislead consumers into purchasing Dean's products.” Later on the article said “the suit claims, the DHA oil used in the milk is a short-chain omega-3 fatty acid.”

Whoa. My first thought was; “Here’s another reporter that flunked high school chemistry.” But as another cautionary tale for the “never assume” saying, it wasn’t the reporter. The actual suit claims: “DHA is a long-chain omega-3 fatty acid typically found in cold water fish. The DHA in Defendants’ milk products is not derived from fish oil. Instead, the DHA oil found in Defendants’ milk is an immature short-chain omega-3 fatty acid made from an extract of mutated and fermented algae.”

Whoa.

A couple of Google searches uncovered another suit in California by the same law firm, saying the exact same thing. This would be one of the firms involved in the recent lawsuit involving Kellogg’s claim that breakfast cereal improved kids’ attentiveness, memory and other cognitive functions. (Class Members received $5 to $15; the law firms received $2,400,000, according to the company handling administration services for the class action settlement.)

I’m not going to argue the merits of the rest of the lawsuit, as there are many other people much more qualified than I to do so. Let’s just say if you live in Canada, DHA “supports the normal physical development of the brain, eyes and nerves primarily in children under two year of age.” But to say DHA isn’t DHA, but instead “an immature short-chain omega-3 fatty acid” makes you wonder what they spent that $2,400,000 on. Not on a chemistry book, I’d have to guess.

-Lynn A. Kuntz