Tasti D-Lite Can No Longer Be Called ‘Low Calorie’

The Department of Consumer Affairs reached an agreement yesterday with the owner and supplier of the frozen dessert Tasti D-Lite that bars the company from using the terms “low calorie” and “cholesterol free” in its advertising. A Matter of Taste, the trademark owner of Tasti D-Lite, will also pay a $100,000 fine to reimburse the city for its investigation.The inquiry began over a concern that vanilla-flavored Tasti D-Lite, which was being advertised as “low calorie,” contained 22% more calories than the Food and Drug Administration allows for the label.A spokeswoman for Tasti D-Lite, Gertrude Bakel, said that even if the dessert did have 22% more calories than the advertising claimed – an allegation she said was never fully proven – the company did not violate any laws. The FDA allows for a 20% margin of error for non-packaged foods and another 2% margin of error for testing instruments, she said.The product is made by human beings, not machines, Ms. Bakel explained. “Every day, it comes out a little different.”Ms. Bakel added that the results of the laboratory tests, provided by Silliker, were open to interpretation. Tasti D-Lite’s consultants determined the company’s advertising complied with federal regulations, while the consultant for the consumer affairs department found that it did not.Both Tasti D-Lite and the Department of Consumer Affairs agreed, however, that there was a problem with the fact that Tasti D-Lite provided nutritional information only for the vanilla flavor. As part of the agreement, Tasti D-Lite agreed it will provide information for all 121 of its flavors.“Consumers have a right to truthful information about what they’re eating – particularly those with specific dietary concerns,” the department’s acting commissioner, Jonathan Mintz, said.The agreement comes more than a year after a rival frozen dessert chain, CremaLita, was prohibited from using the term “low calorie” to describe its soft-serve ice cream because it did not meet the government standard for a low-calorie label.“People are looking, honestly, for less calorie and fat-free stuff,” the owner of a Tasti D-Lite franchise at 74 Chambers St., Mohammed Miah, said.Then he thought for a moment and changed his mind. “Actually, people love the stuff. They don’t care, actually. It’s not going to hurt business much.” Customers are drawn to the product because, unlike similar low-fat ice-cream imitations that use artificial sweetener, Tasti D-Lite does not have an aftertaste, he said.Mr. Miah opened a manila envelope he had received just yesterday that contained two glossy posters touting Tasti-D-Lite as “lower calorie,” “low fat,” “100% natural,” “low carb,” “low cholesterol,” and “kosher.” One poster, which Mr. Miah taped carefully onto the wall behind the counter, separated 100 flavors into three categories based on fat content.Peanut butter, which Mr. Miah says is the most popular flavor at his franchise, was listed as having 15 to 17 calories an ounce. According to Ms. Bakel, peanut butter has the highest fat content of all Tasti D-Lite’s flavors.The company is allowed to call its product “lower fat,” Ms. Bakel said, as long as it has 25% less fat than the most similar product. With 11 to 17 calories an ounce, she said, Tasti D-Lite has only one-fifth the calories of regular ice cream and one-fourth the calories of soft-serve ice cream.“Some young girls, they come only for low calories. They ask for it specifically,” an employee of the Chambers Street franchise, Arif Ahmed, said. Mr. Ahmed said about 10% of the franchise’s customer base falls into this category, but after Mr. Miah spoke to him rapidly in Bengali, he changed that estimate to 5%, adding, “Most people take it just like ice cream.”One customer visiting from England, Paul Keenan, said the fact that Tasti DLite might not be “low calorie” would “absolutely not” deter him.“If I want an ice cream, I’ll have an ice cream,” he said.

Tasti D-Lite Can No Longer Be Called ‘Low Calorie’

Tasti D-Lite Can No Longer Be Called ‘Low Calorie’

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