Sorry,long post. Has anyone raised the adding of vitamins to any and all foods, frequently at levels internationally declared too high?
An example, not the worst, is a fruit drink sold in re-usable glass bottles, therefore likely to appeal particularly to people concerned about ethical consumption and health
Small print shows it contains overdose levels of added vitamins
e.g. 700 times the recommended amount of vitamin B 12, in a product which "must be consumed within 3 days" I.E. purchasers must take a minimum of double the agreed medically advisable amount of B 12, even before whatever other dietary sources they take in each day.
Shortage of B12 or any other vitamin is not a good thing. But overdoses of any vitamins are equally bad. That is the entire purpose of producing internationally agreed advisable amounts.
It appears the pharmachemical industry is offloading its products by fair means or questionable ones. (In vitamin pills, it is not rare to see a supposedly daily pill would contain many hundreds the advised amount of an ingredient)
Having once known someone eager to improve her health, but wrecking it by taking overdoses of vitamins, I find this shocking: The general public might well believe that "if some is good, more must be better", so even if they do read the small print, not everyone will notice the significance, and only pharmacists will know the risks of overdosing.
"With added protein" or "With added vitamins" is unscrupulous marketing of a false notion that there can never be too much of a "good thing". People could be feeding themselves or their children ridiculous amounts of what appears 'nutritious', such as the same amount of protein as an entire animal carcasse, or the same amount of a vitamin as a lorry load of vegetables.
The industry may shrug that "it is declared on the label, so customers freely choose". For half a century, customers "freely chose" tobacco, in ignorance of the full implications of what that industry understood.