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Sadly, the Federal Government rejected the Traffic light labelling reforms today.

While the labelling system might have lead to some confusion for certain unhealthy foods (eg. those high in natural sugars as opposed to highly processed foods that are low in sugar), it is still a far better system than the current labelling laws.

The Government cited there was “inconclusive evidence” to support  introduction of a traffic labelling system, particularly when viewed alongside studies showing that such a system can influence buyer behavior.

The bottom line is, Australia has some extremely powerful food lobby groups whose members would have been disadvantaged  if the traffic system had been given the green light.

Written by Andrew Talati

There’s been quite a bit of talk recently about changing the way food products are labelled in an attempt to educate and encourage people to make healthier food choices.

Governments around the world are considering (and in some cases have already implemented) systems that provide ‘traffic light’ nutrition labels on food.

The general idea is that every food product you buy would have a label on the front advising you of the fat, sugar and sodium levels in terms of good (green), okay (amber), and too high (red).

It sounds like a good idea. The question is, will it work?

Traffic Light Labels
The primary idea behind traffic light labelling is to make it easier for the general public to choose healthier food options without the need for a lot of education.

By adding colour-coded labels to food, people will instantly know whether or not their food falls into a good, okay or not good category.

It also allows Governments and health promotion agencies to focus their attention on promoting the system rather than the larger job of providing nutrition education.

The idea of colour-coded food labels is quite good. Foods are assessed on the levels of fat, salt and sugar. Levels of each determine the colour-code of each category.

For example, a food that receives the green light in each category can be eaten regularly. A product that gets the red light should be avoided or, at the very least, eaten only on occasion. Amber foods can be consumed in moderation as they are neither high nor low.

Traffic Light Criteria
The criterion for categorising food is based on the amounts of fat, sugar and salt per 100gm. The 100gm measurement has been used for many years now to help people compare food products. Most of us have used this system at some time have compared two or three products to find the better option based on the nutritional content.

In essence, traffic light labels take this idea one step further. Colour-coding  information on the front of the packet will make it so much easier to choose a healthier product.

The following table shows how the content of foods will be categorised:

Green Amber Red
Total fat per 100gm <3 gm 3.1-19.9gm >20gm
Saturated fat per 100gm < 5gm 5.1-14.9gm >15gm
Sugar per 100gm <5gm 5.1 -14.9gm >15gm
Sodium (salt) per 100gm 120mg 121-599mg >600mg

Iphone Application
The Cancer Council of Victoria have actually released an application for the iPhone that compensates for the lack of movement by the government. Just search the iTunes app store under “Traffic Light Labelling.”

The Pros and Cons
As with many things, the traffic light system has both good and bad points.

While the system will help easier identification of good and not so good nutritional foods, the system doesn’t differentiate between healthy and unhealthy foods.

For example, many breakfast cereals may be perceived as healthy, but using the traffic light system they’ll get a green light for saturated fat, amber for sodium and a red light for sugar.

In this instance these foods are unhealthy but no labelling identifies them as such. However, people do need to use common sense. Even though a product may have two ‘green lights’ and one red light,  consumers still need to understand that a high sugar content is inherently unhealthy.

As a health promotion exercise and an attempt to improve the obesity problem on both a national and international level, the traffic light system is a simple way to encourage us to be more conscious of the foods we choose.

As with many Government health initiatives, while the traffic light system may encourage people to be more selective about their food choices, there are those who will continue eat what they want regardless of its health impact.

Obesity is clearly an issue in the Western world. Anything that can be done to help improve the health and wellbeing of our population is always a good thing.

And while there may be some issues with traffic light labelling, encouraging people to choose healthier food options can and will have a positive impact on the health of our nation.

Written by Andrew Talati

With two thirds of the Australian population overweight or obese, there really needs to be some regulations regarding food packaging and advertising. KFC latest product, the Double Down Burger users the Man time copy line, with a massive 1939 kJ.

While a person’s daily energy intake will vary depending on your age, sex, body size and the level of activity that you engage in, a 31-year-old to 50-year-old male weighing 71 kg requires 8300kj per day based on no physical activities, just to sustain life.

So in just one sitting without the added chips or soft drink nearly a quarter of the days energy requirements are up represented by this fat laden burger (22.3gms).

This advertisement appeared on Facebook under a clients profile who is in their mid-20s. This type of advertising is extremely clever as it targets teenage boys who see the high levels of fat as a gastronomic challenge while men may find this targeting their masculinity.

This is a classic case where food labeling is required that identifies this as a high health risk product given the high percentage of energy and fat.

A tax on energy dense foods would make such products extremely expensive and would remove their attractiveness as a product to be consumed on a regular basis.

This is a classic example where one would need to really evaluate KFC’s motivation in bringing out such a highly energy dense product when they’re recommending that the clients climb the stairs to burn 930 kJ which is just under half the energy contained with this one burger.

Without singling out KFC, the other fast food companies are hardly squeaky clean with hungry Jack’s ultimate double whopper burger packing our humongous 5085 kJ and McDonald’s the Mac having 2060 kJ. I guess the most disturbing thing about the KFC double down burger is the fact that there is no bread and vegetables whatsoever, just meat or rather processed meat and preservatives.

Hopefully this product stimulates a lot of debate about advertising standards, food packaging and perhaps even a energy tax.

With consumers becoming more health conscious and trying to adopt a healthier lifestyle, is food advertising misleading consumers to make inappropriate choices.

While advertising standards govern what claims can be made in respect of the particular products or services and Food Standards Australian and New Zealand addressing some issues regarding contents of products it’s a free for all with saying whatever you like regarding the benefits of particular foods or insinuating the source of the ingredients.

A good example of a product is the Spring Valley apple juice, this advertisement was placed on the side of the tram shelter. It gives the impression of freshness, purity and nature, that the juice is derived from a natural stream with abundant wildlife in the background.

While consumers obviously know that Spring Valley product doesn’t come from a stream, it does create the overall impression of freshness, purity and nature that together projects a healthy product.

However when you look a little bit deeper at the nutritional panel, it paints a different story with 99% of the Apple juice being reconstituted. So is reconstituted juice really fresh, Does the tagline in the advertisement “where spring comes from” really give a true indication that the product contains reconstituted juice?.

Well reconstituted juice contains aseptic juice which is apple juice which is being heated to kill any bacteria and other nasty stuff installed for anywhere up to two years.

On the front of the actual Orange juice label is a mini label stating that each serve contains 9% of the daily energy intake, however the product contains 12.3% sugar.

There is also a note saying a rich source of vitamin C however the ingredients panel states that vitamin C (absorbing acid) has been added. So in effect it’s one step away from actually consuming a vitamin C tablet however in a more digestible form. It makes for an interesting question if the products is natural and pure given the added Vitamin C and what has happened to the vitamin C naturally contained within the Apple juice.

So while drinking apple juice in the reconstituted form is better than a soft drink, it does beg the question whether there should be more responsible advertising standards in regards to the messages being projected at consumers.

While this isn’t in the same category as Cokes misleading advertisements, we need to have some accountability.

When you look at the the amount of sugar in the so called “Health bars’ are they healthy or really just confectionery marketed to look like a healthier alternative to chocolate bars?

From this selection of snack bars that are marketed to give the appearance of being healthy, are they really that much better than confectionery.

Is the packaging misleading consumers?

If you look at a lot of confectionery bars such as a 55gm Cadbury Cherry Ripe, it contains 27.9gms of sugar or just on 50% so lets compare this with the Nice & Natural, Carmans and Uncle Toby bars.

You will see from Nice and Natural that they contain 25.7% sugar while Carman’s contains 19.9% sugar.

So from Uncle Tobys there is also a high level of sugar at 28.2% which gets buried by showing the amount of sugar per serving size.

This gives a misleading indication and many people will rely on the the information on the front of the packaging that says “Total Sugars 8.8g DI 10%”

Don’t forget the high saturated fat content as well at 7.4%, 1.6% (good) or 9.4% respectively.

This leads to whether a product that contains 20-30% sugar is really not that far behind a chocolate confectionery bar at 50% sugar. Like any product that is high in energy or sugar, it should be consumed in moderation however these bars are often given to kids in there daily lunch boxes as the appearance of a healthy box ticks all the boxes.
Unfortunately with the childhood obesity issue, should these types of products be given to kids.

For a product to be appealing to kids or adults for that matter, it needs to have lots of sugar, salt or fats, so all 3 products score high in the sugar rating while only Carman’s has a low level of Saturated fat while Nice & Natural and Uncle Toby’s are at unacceptable levels (7.4% & 9.4% respectively) if these bars are construed as being healthy.

The most disturbing fact is the omission of “trans fats” that are the really nasty fats, or known as Hydronised vegetable oil, it’s intersting that Carman’s is the only bar that includes this at 0% while Uncle Toby’s and Nice & Natural have no listings.

Given that the later 2 products contain vegetable oi or vegetable fat, and the processes involved in the manufacturing process involves lots of heat, there is a good chance that these products would contain “trans fats”

So I’II let you decide whether you think these health bars are just confectionery?