Obesity: New Food Labelling System Planned

[Northerner]

A new food labelling system that is consistent across all supermarkets will make it easier for shoppers to spot the healthiest foods, the Government is to announce.

Labels will include information on guideline daily amounts (GDAs), be colour coded with a traffic light system and use the words "high", "medium" or "low" to inform people about how much fat, saturated fat, salt, sugar and calories are inside.

Food nutritionist Nicole Berberian told Sky News: "The main thing that you notice at the moment is that labels are different for each different supplier.

"They could be on the front, they could be on the side, they could be colour coded, they could be randomly colour coded, so it's very difficult to know what to look for.

http://news.sky.com/story/1001800/obesity-new-food-labelling-system-planned

 

[Abi]

I'm concerned that a high fat food will be deemed unhealthy purely due to fat content ( nuts and oily fish for example- even the anti fat lobby agree these are healthy, and others such as cheese- which even if you are concerned regarding fat intake, is healthy in sensible quantities, and the high refined low fat products such as white bread, instant noodles will be deemed healthier purely as they are low in fat.
And don't get me started on the issue of not having adequate info re carbs without having to take the product home and weigh it- those packets that state nutritional breakdown per 100g but don;t say how heavy the packet is or a serving

Rant over

 

[Northerner]

I think this is the chief argument that the food manufacturers have levelled against the traffic light system - the food is taken in isolation and the system is too simplistic to distinguish between good and bad fats.