Labour on food traffic lights
Read more about: Health, Labour Party 
I started to write this piece with a view to seeing what it actually proposes. But on reading it I got angry and insulted. I felt belittled and talked down too. I felt that this document was treating me like a child. And most insulting of all that I needed someone to do the thinking for me. I feel the need to yell and scream at this document. But obviously I can’t point out every line in this policy. So here is some choice ones
People lead busy lives, so making healthier choices when shopping needs to be quick and easy. However, choosing the healthiest foods quickly is almost impossible at the moment for busy shoppers.
The average person buys 61 items in 26 minutes during a weekly shop. Given that each purchase implies some examination of competing products, this means that shoppers have all of seven seconds to scan each label. Is it any wonder that consumers confess to a feeling of helplessness as they navigate supermarket aisles?
Currently up to 11 different types of information are displayed on processed food products in
Ireland . By the time a bottle of sauce or a ready made chicken dinner
is on the shelf shoppers are often very confused about what the information on the label actually really means.
Ok lets take an average label for coca cola. Clearly marked are calories, fat, sugar, protein, fibre sodium. What is confusing about that? Are we seriously saying that the majority of people do not know sodium =salt?
Add to this the spiraling obesity levels in this country and it becomes clear that consumers need impartial assistance in making healthy food choices.
Look to cause of rising obesity is really very very simple. 1.) People are eating crap and 2.) people are not exercising. Now people know these things. They know litres of Coke are not good for you, that crisps are not good for you that chocolate is not good for you. Parents for instance, know this yet they still give their kids these products. No amount of coloured stickers is going to make them stop doing this. They already know.
The system would also address situations where manufacturers make unsubstantiated health claims about products. This is because Traffic Light labeling can reveal at a glance the levels of the key nutrients in each food product.
How is traffic lights going to help people know whether all these super yogurts like Activia or Actimal actually do anything?
But maybe I am being to harsh on Labour maybe people really are so stupid that they have to be told what to do.
Consumers in the
UK have become increasingly aware that green means eat plenty, amber, eat in moderation and red, means eat such products sparingly.
Actually Simon, I wouldn’t be surprised if a very large part of the population who are overweight don’t know that sodium = salt. And I say that both as a engineer and a tab of lard myself.
I think the tone of the document is wrong but the idea itself is fine. And I wonder about Mary Coughlan’s response http://www.unison.ie/irish_independent/stories.php3?ca=39&si=1763763&issue_id=15173
She says “as it would label healthy foods such as cheese with a red light” Well, cheese is high in fat. We shouldn’t eat too much of it. I think this is another good illustration of the conflict we have when we have a department of Agriculture which is focused on the producers interests, and not a department of Food which would be more focused on the citizenry’s interests.
Just shows how out of touch all these ‘robots’ in Dail Eireann are! They are all trying to come up with an innovative way of impressing the voter instead of tackling the real problems out there. How can we vote for any of them?
That’s a joint Labour-FG policy, btw. Not just Labour.
And I’d completely agree with Dan that most people do not know that “sodium” on a nutrition label means salt. There’s a secondary issue, too, which is that people (including me, a well educated person with an IQ well into the genius level and several third level qualifications) don’t know how much of each nutritional element they should take each day. I know that sodium is around 1600mg/day (although the Yanks disagree and say 2400mg), but I’ve no idea how much riboflavin or phosphorous I should be taking.
This is a good idea. If the packaging can indicate at a quick glance whether the salt, for example, levels in two similar products differ significantly, then I’m going to take the one that’s better for me. It might not make me stop eating Frosties, but it might make me choose Kellacks’ Frost-Flakes, with half the sugar, instead.
Research finds fatal flaw in industry’s food labelling scheme
03/01/2007
New research by the Children’s Food Campaign has shown just how flawed the food industry’s ‘percent of Guideline Daily Amount (GDA)’ labelling scheme is.
Using figures from the [UK] Department for Education’s Skills for Life survey our researchers found that almost half of all adults (47 percent) lack the numerical skills to use the percentages used in industry’s labelling scheme (see note one).
This research helps explain why the Food Standards Agency, when it compared its own ‘traffic-light’ labelling model against industry’s ‘percent of GDA’ labels, found that:
62% of people misunderstood ‘percent of GDA’ labels. In comparison, only 21% misunderstood the ‘traffic light’ labels recommended by the Food Standards Agency.
42% of consumers said that ‘percent of GDA’ labels were too complicated.
‘Percent of GDA’ labels took at least 3 seconds longer per item for individuals to interpret.
This research is published as both the food industry and the Food Standards Agency embark on major advertising campaigns to support the competing food labelling systems. Companies, such as Danone, Kellogg’s, Kraft, Nestle and PepsiCo have also been heavily lobbying MPs to support the ‘percent of GDA’ system.
Richard Watts, Co-ordinator of the Children’s Food Campaign, said: “The food industry will be aware that their new labels will be useless to almost half of adults. and most children, who simply lack the complex mathematical skills to interpret them. It is no wonder that the public find traffic light food labels simpler and easier to use.”
He continued: “I fear industry’s system was designed only to give the appearance of action in the face of the current crisis in diet related ill-health, but at the same time, avoid using the red labels that might actually discourage people from eating junk food. Powerful companies, such as Kellogg’s, have been vigorously lobbying MPs to support this unclear and unhelpful system which will do nothing to help stop the rise of childhood obesity, but will help to protect their profits”.
The Children’s Food Campaign will be writing to all MPs and British MEPs with a fact-sheet (download as 64kb PDF), which outlines our findings.
Ends.
http://www.sustainweb.org/news.php?id=169