Hard-hitting warning labels should be on everyday food, say campaigners
Health charities call for taxes on salty products and bans on junk food sponsorship of sport to help cut deaths from heart disease
www.theguardian.com
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Health warnings should be on everyday foods
- Thread starter Burylancs
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www.theguardian.com
Amity Island
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Perhaps there is a problem with the product rather than with a lack of labelling. Fags are a good example.Hard-hitting warning labels should be on everyday food, say campaigners
Health charities call for taxes on salty products and bans on junk food sponsorship of sport to help cut deaths from heart disease
beating_my_betes
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Education is the only way. The genie is too long out of the bottle and there are too many vested interests.
Of course, nobody will be able to agree who will be doing the educating and what should be on the syllabus 😉
stephenS50
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I totally agree with you...education is the only way.
Amity Island
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Do you mean as in encouraging people to cook their own meals using whole foods? Move away from ready made meals, takeaways and junk?
Bruce Stephens
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Telling people they ought to eat more healthily? I feel like that's been tried for a few decades now...
Deb_l
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I think the British food agencies (or whoever did it) had a good stab at this with the traffic light system on food. Yes, it's far from perfect but does give a broad indicator of 'good' food versus 'bad'.
At the end of the day though, all the information about food is readily available on the label; carbs, fat, salt etc but it's up to us, the consumer to make wise choices and that's hard, when you're addicted to junk food. It's the same as tobacco giants printing health warnings on cigarette packets. They know for a fact people will still smoke if they want to. These warnings don't stop them!
Processed food is certainly more readily available than it was 50 years ago but there is also more education about healthy living. What really makes the difference for a lot of families is cost. Fresh food, like fish for example is now off the charts price wise, as is a lot of meat produce. Much cheaper to feed the family processed chicken nuggets and oven chips I suspect
At the end of the day though, all the information about food is readily available on the label; carbs, fat, salt etc but it's up to us, the consumer to make wise choices and that's hard, when you're addicted to junk food. It's the same as tobacco giants printing health warnings on cigarette packets. They know for a fact people will still smoke if they want to. These warnings don't stop them!
Processed food is certainly more readily available than it was 50 years ago but there is also more education about healthy living. What really makes the difference for a lot of families is cost. Fresh food, like fish for example is now off the charts price wise, as is a lot of meat produce. Much cheaper to feed the family processed chicken nuggets and oven chips I suspect
beating_my_betes
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And we've also been telling people not to smoke for decades, yet people still smoke. Would you suggest we stop educating people on the harms of smoking?
The food recommendations have been on the right tracks for a while, and have evolved as new information comes to light. The issue, imo, is that the guidelines haven't been explicit enough. But that's also changing with the times.
Ultimately, people will end up doing what they want to do. But I think it's possible to meet people where they're at, and help them toweards their goal, while not having to go to crazy extremes. Unfortunately the current rhetoric seems very much at odds with the reality of the situation.
beating_my_betes
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I think this is just a matter of perspective. Eating well, even these days, needn't be crazily expensive. And there are certainly a lot of people who will still spend a huge amount on fast-food and other non-food items, while bemoaning the cost of food.
To be clear, I'm not saying that food isn't expensive. I just don't think less-healthy options are so cheap either.
Amity Island
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It never used to be a problem. "We" used to get our food from the butchers, bakers, fruit and veg stall and fishmongers etc. That was until the big boys opened up their supermarkets and ended all the local businesses and all their locally sourced seasonal produce. Before people were replaced with humanless tills. A time when people knew each other. A time when recipes were shared amongst neighbours.
Bruce Stephens
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No, I'd just suggest we not assume that it's going to be sufficient on its own. Or even particularly significant.
Inka
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The issue, imo, is that the guidelines haven't been explicit enough.
I agree. There’s been too much polite vagueness whereas there needs to be more direct, clear and blunt guidelines. People are led to believe that in a choice between, say, chicken breast and rice and green veg versus chicken nuggets and chips and a couple of slices of bread and butter, that the former is a better choice but they’re not that dissimilar so, although they could point to the best choice, they don’t feel hugely inclined to choose it most of the time because they see both choices as pretty similar.
I also think we over-estimate many people’s cooking abilities. I once house-shared with someone who are processed foods for every single evening meal. Everything was frozen and processed. He made efforts to eat a variety of processed rubbish, but his diet was awful. He simply had no idea how to go about planning and cooking meals.
Schools need to teach cooking to everyone not Food Tech where they waste their time designing packets for biscuits, or spend 3 lessons making a simple apple crumble. They need to be taught a thorough grasp of the basics and then meal planning, prep and cooking.
I agree. There’s been too much polite vagueness whereas there needs to be more direct, clear and blunt guidelines. People are led to believe that in a choice between, say, chicken breast and rice and green veg versus chicken nuggets and chips and a couple of slices of bread and butter, that the former is a better choice but they’re not that dissimilar so, although they could point to the best choice, they don’t feel hugely inclined to choose it most of the time because they see both choices as pretty similar.
I also think we over-estimate many people’s cooking abilities. I once house-shared with someone who are processed foods for every single evening meal. Everything was frozen and processed. He made efforts to eat a variety of processed rubbish, but his diet was awful. He simply had no idea how to go about planning and cooking meals.
Schools need to teach cooking to everyone not Food Tech where they waste their time designing packets for biscuits, or spend 3 lessons making a simple apple crumble. They need to be taught a thorough grasp of the basics and then meal planning, prep and cooking.
Inka
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Lots
I think education needs to be very clear and blunt; widespread (to catch adults who missed input at school); and helped by online resources, eg meal plans and shopping lists. There also needs to be some kind of taxing of UPFs, particularly the ‘convenience foods’ that are cheap and low quality and money put in to make healthy choices cheaper.Other things would help too, like social changes to reduce the working week and/or day thus allowing more time to shop and cook; more local shops in poorer areas where people might not have access to a car; community kitchens where people can learn to cook together and maybe acccess discounted healthy foods, and so on.
nonethewiser
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Let's be honest, only way your going to to do that is by closing fast food outlets & banning junk food completely, it would be a brave PM/Gov that would try to do that.
Don't think there's one answer tbh, we are to far down the road.
Amity Island
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The only chance is probably for people to join their local food cooperatives that have been popping up, perhaps support local allotments by buying from them. Could local farmers help too?
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I think one of the challenges is the Huge Hungry Machine that powers so much food production, marketing, formulation, and retail - whose main priority is on profit rather than ensuring good nutrition and/or the health of the consumers of the foods.
As examples - vegan food used to be plant based, largely made from scratch with simple wholefood ingredients, and a few nifty workarounds.
Then ‘veganism’ became popularised, packaged, shrink-wrapped, boxed and labelled. Now there are aisles and aisles of hugely processed frankenstein chemistry experiments on the shelves with a ‘vegan’ label. But I suspect many of them are far from healthy, or good for the environment for that matter.
Plus, look what happened after the Sugar Tax. A piece of regulation intended to be helpful, but previously sugar-sweetened beverages were reformulated to have just enough sugar to stay under the threshold, but then a bucket load of sweeteners.
Did I hear the other day that the UK has one of the highest levels of consumption of industrial ultra-processed hyper-palatable foods in Europe?
As examples - vegan food used to be plant based, largely made from scratch with simple wholefood ingredients, and a few nifty workarounds.
Then ‘veganism’ became popularised, packaged, shrink-wrapped, boxed and labelled. Now there are aisles and aisles of hugely processed frankenstein chemistry experiments on the shelves with a ‘vegan’ label. But I suspect many of them are far from healthy, or good for the environment for that matter.
Plus, look what happened after the Sugar Tax. A piece of regulation intended to be helpful, but previously sugar-sweetened beverages were reformulated to have just enough sugar to stay under the threshold, but then a bucket load of sweeteners.
Did I hear the other day that the UK has one of the highest levels of consumption of industrial ultra-processed hyper-palatable foods in Europe?
Cost is not just a case of the cost of the food in the supermarket. It is also the cost of time when people are working long hours and coming back home exhausted. Shoving a frozen pizza in the oven or chicken nuggets in the air fryer or popping down to the take away takes a lot less effort when you have been working really hard, especially if you do not know how to cook vegetables or don't have a cupboard of spices to make them interesting.
Inka
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Yes, there are various charts showing the U.K. diet contains a high percentage of UPFs, close to the US’s, eg here:
What I found shocking was the UPF percentage of children’s diets in the U.K. This really shouldn’t be allowed. I know no-one wants a nanny state but I almost want to ban some foods - especially those aimed at children, or maybe introduce legislation that makes them too much hassle for the manufacturers to make. As well as being unhealthy, they’re destroying children’s palettes.
Edited to add a link re children:
www.independent.co.uk
What I found shocking was the UPF percentage of children’s diets in the U.K. This really shouldn’t be allowed. I know no-one wants a nanny state but I almost want to ban some foods - especially those aimed at children, or maybe introduce legislation that makes them too much hassle for the manufacturers to make. As well as being unhealthy, they’re destroying children’s palettes.
Edited to add a link re children:
Shock study finds ultra-processed foods account for two-thirds of children’s calories
UPFs have been linked to poor health, such as through an increased risk of obesity and heart disease
www.independent.co.uk