EU Bans Claim Water Prevents Dehydration

[Yassen]

It seems to be a time of baffling news, in the wake of the US congress labeling Pizza a vegetable, the European Food Standards Authority has made it illegal for advertisers to claim that water can reduce dehydration.

DRINKING water does not ease dehydration, the European Union has ruled - and anyone who disagrees faces two years in prison.

The decision ? after three years of discussions ? results from an attempt by two German academics to test EU advertising rules which set down when companies can claim their products reduce the risk of disease.

The academics asked for a ruling on a convoluted statement which, in short, claimed that water could reduce dehydration.

Dehydration is defined as a shortage of water in the body ? but the European Food Standards Authority decided the statement could not be allowed.

The ruling, announced after a conference of 21 EU-appointed scientists in Parma and which means that bottled water companies cannot claim their product stops people?s bodies drying out, was given final approval this week by European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso.

Tory MEP Roger Helmer said: ?This is stupidity writ large. The euro is burning, the EU is falling apart and yet here they are worrying about the obvious qualities of water. If ever there were an episode which demonstrates the folly of the great European project, then this is it.?

Under British law, advertisers who make health claims that breach EU law can be prosecuted and face two years in jail.

The decision was being hailed as the daftest Brussels edict since the EU sent down laws on how bendy bananas should be.

The statement on which the eminent EU experts ruled claimed that ?regular consumption of significant amounts of water can reduce the risk of development of dehydration and of concomitant decrease of performance.?

However the Parma gathering ruled: ?The panel considers that the proposed claim does not comply with the requirements for a disease risk reduction claim.?

It declared that shortage of water in the body was just a symptom of dehydration.

Dr Andreas Hahn and Dr Moritz Hagenmeyer of the Institute for Food Science and Human Nutrition at Hanover Leibniz University said they were unhappy but not surprised.

?We fear there is something wrong in the state of Europe,? Professor Hahn said.

He added that the academics had been trying to test the working of EU food and advertising rules.

?It was free of charge, there was no apparent red tape attached and it gave food business operators, whom we regularly advise, a chance to advertise their products in a new way,? he added. ?We thought we should give it a try and see what would happen.

?But over almost four years, it became clear that the procedure was anything but straightforward. Any company depending on the claim would long have gone out of business. What is our reaction to the outcome? Let us put it this way: We are neither surprised nor delighted.?

He said: ?The European Commission is wrong; it should have authorised the claim. That should be more than clear to anyone who has consumed water in the past, and who has not??

Source: http://www.couriermail.com.au/news/world/eu-bans-claim-water-prevents-dehydration/story-e6freopo-1226201218016

 

[X10J]

Hmmmmm, I'd like to know... the whole story.

 

[Pandaman1911]

...okay. That's it. I like to stay informed, I like to keep an eye on the news... but with all the CRAP that's happening in the world, I just am ready to put my fist through the screen/TV/reporter most of the time! The protests, the deficit, the riots, the pizza, and now fucking WATER! Gah! I'm done! No more! I'm going back to being an ignorant ne'er-do-well who pays no attention to anything important! I can't stand being informed and educated!

 

[Revnak_v1legacy]

[sarcasm]
Only in the EU
[/sarcasm]

OT-To be fair if you too much water once you're dehydrated you can get more sick, but this is stupid none the less. I'm happy that doesn't happen where I live.

Edit-

Drinking water doesn't help ease dehydration as much as you would think. You need salt along with the water. Plain water by itself could make things even worse for you.

Oh yeah, this too. Still stupid, but yeah, you need salts too, just not too may salts as that can have the opposite effect, although the same isn't true for water in this regard, I think.

 

[Throwitawaynow]

I say go for it. Everyone knows drinking water helps with dehydration. But they banned fraudulent companies from saying, "Our miracle pill/drink/etc helps combat disease!" When in reality they just added water to it. I wish the US government would do the same thing I am extremely tired of all the fake drugs that get advertised on television.

 

[Something Amyss]

...okay. That's it. I like to stay informed, I like to keep an eye on the news... but with all the CRAP that's happening in the world, I just am ready to put my fist through the screen/TV/reporter most of the time! The protests, the deficit, the riots, the pizza, and now fucking WATER! Gah! I'm done! No more! I'm going back to being an ignorant ne'er-do-well who pays no attention to anything important! I can't stand being informed and educated!

For what it's worth, it's not what it sounds like.

The pizza, yes. Water? Not so much.

 

[The Rascal King]

haha just kidding. I'm an American so this doesn't apply to me. Excuse me while I eat some pizza to get my daily dose of awesome viatamins.

 

[EmperorSubcutaneous]

Drinking water doesn't help ease dehydration as much as you would think. You need salt along with the water. Plain water by itself could make things even worse for you.

I need to know the whole story on this one.

 

[Tiger Sora]

Right the EU can just fuck right off right now. You spent 3 years debating wether or not water..... which is like 70% of your body. Wether or not it can rehydrate you. Which you ruled it can't. But the obvious being that your eyeballs are made of water you can't see past the stupidity of yourself. I revoke the right for the EU to continue due to it's sheer stupidity and waste of money. You can't work out your debt crisis cause your debating wether or not water can hydrate.

Mind boggling. My belief in humanity has been shaken severely. I'm gona go try to forget about this.

 

[Soviet Steve]

Hmmmmm, I'd like to know... the whole story.

Companies want to label their bottled water as the miracle cure to the dreaded disease of dehydration. EU feels that that is senseless marketing practices and that water is just water. Corporations whine.

 

[Something Amyss]

Hmmmmm, I'd like to know... the whole story.

Companies want to label their bottled water as the miracle cure to the dreaded disease of dehydration. EU feels that that is senseless marketing practices and that water is just water. Corporations whine.

Add: and the gullible buy it and ridicule an otherwise logical step.

 

[Something Amyss]

haha just kidding. I'm an American so this doesn't apply to me. Excuse me while I eat some pizza to get my daily dose of awesome viatamins.

Don't forget your beer. It's now two servings of fruit.

 

[SenseOfTumour]

Considering the article's quoting the banana myth, I'm not given to believing much more of it.
It turned out 'deformed bananas' would be sold at a lower grade is all, there was never any 'ban', and if anything , it's supermarkets wanting to sell 'perfect' looking fruit and veg that causes most waste.

So many of these things are printing then reprinted by every media outlet that's anti europe.

ah hold on, I've just read the original, and it's 'from the Daily Mail website'.

I've read Dr Seuss books less fictional than the Daily Mail. Sad thing is, if one day they dared print a fact, people wouldn't believe it.

Just googling the phrase "EU bans claim water prevents dehydration " brings up tons of results all linking it to rants about 'nanny state' and even 'global warming myths'. I suppose water can be warm, so that's enough of a link.

Of course this may all be entirely true, but I imagine there's lots not being told, as it was research for a bottled water company's ad campaign, so, just putting it out there, maybe they wanted to say that only Evian rehydrates, or that bottled water rehydrates the body better than tap water.

All I know is there's something not being told, so it can be framed as another 'those loony beureacrats in Brussels' tale.

 

[X10J]

Thanks, but I was making a LRR referance.

 

[SenseOfTumour]

I'd also suggest that on the pizza front, if you've had 4 'proper' servings of fruit n veg, then I imagine the tomato base, combined with a few toppings like onion and peppers, easily counts as the fifth, you just can't expect to eat 5 pizzas a day and live to 200.

Even fruit juice I believe only counts as 'one' even if you drink 10 pints of the stuff.

It's all in crunching the story down to a single simple headline, and in doing so jettisoning the facts in favour of a rage inducing eyecatcher.

The Daily Mail pretty much exists for this reason, they even run surveys purely to generate ad revenue from the people that hate them. They'll do a web survey, 'should immigrants get a free house and a million pounds and a big telly?, and people will tweet about it being a stupid survey, and lots will go there to troll a ton of 'yes' votes to annoy the locals.

In doing so the Mail gets a fuckton of web hits and sell more ad space at higher prices.

They're essentially the WBC of news, trolling for profit, with the majority of their staff not even believing what they say, just taking the money and reprinting the same tired old nonsense.

There was a site that took screengrabs of their most offensive stories so people could link to them for discussion without the Mail getting ad money from it, but their lawyers found out and stomped all over it. (Fairly, if I'm honest, which I don't want to be.)

 

[emeraldrafael]

You'd think you wouldnt need to advertise water.

 

[Something Amyss]

Cue people misunderstand what's gone on.

In plain and simple English. The EU did right.

A little late on that cue.

 

[Something Amyss]

I'd also suggest that on the pizza front, if you've had 4 'proper' servings of fruit n veg, then I imagine the tomato base, combined with a few toppings like onion and peppers, easily counts as the fifth, you just can't expect to eat 5 pizzas a day and live to 200.

That's not what this is about, though.