(CSPI: Washington) -- On several Web sites, the Sara Lee Corp. muses about how consumers are likely to mistakenly believe that many “whole grain” breads are actually more like whole wheat bread than white bread, and chides its competitors for not being “100-percent whole-grain.”

Sara Lee helps foster that confusion by marketing a “Soft & Smooth Made with Whole Grain White Bread” and falsely claiming that it’s as nutritious as whole-wheat bread. The nonprofit Center for Science in the Public Interest recently served the company with formal notice that it will file suit against the company if the misleading claims continue.

“This ‘whole grain’ bread is mostly refined white flour, the kind of flour that health authorities recommend Americans eat less of,” says CSPI executive director Michael F. Jacobson. “Sara Lee is attempting to put a whole grain halo on a bread that is not whole wheat. I call that a whole grain whitewash.”

Only 30 percent of the grain in Sara Lee’s Soft and Smooth Whole Grain White Bread is whole grain, and the rest is refined white flour, according to news reports. In fact, there is more water in this product than whole grain.

CSPI’s notification to Sara Lee says it wants the company to stop the misleading whole-grain claims and to donate to charity the profits it has received from “Soft & Smooth Made with Whole Grain White Bread” since its introduction in 2005. Sara Lee has 30 days to respond to CSPI’s settlement offer.

According to Steve Gardner, CSPI litigation director, supermarkets are replete with breads, bagels, crackers, and frozen pancakes and waffles that pretend to be whole grain.

CSPI’s litigation project has successfully negotiated binding legal settlements with other food companies over misleading labeling. As a result of CSPI’s negotiating, Kraft will no longer call its high-fructose-corn-syrup-sweetened Capri Sun drinks “all natural,” Aunt Jemima blueberry waffles are now labeled to make it clear that the “blueberries” are artificial, and Quaker Oats agreed to tone down exaggerated claims about the cholesterol-lowering abilities of oatmeal.

CSPI withdrew a lawsuit it filed against KFC after that chain announced it would switch to trans-fat-free frying oil, and negotiated with Kellogg a pact that changed the way that company markets food to young children.            

For more information, visit http://cspinet.org/new/200712171.html.