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Current Food labelling is misleading consumers with confusing information for the average person. By using a myriad of information, the product can appear to be healthy and within acceptable limits when in fact it is giving a different perception.

Research has shown that people do not fully understand what DI or daily intake represents or what a serving size should be based on there height or body weight.

Uncle Toby’s bars appear to be healthy with low levels of sugar when compared to the daily intake but contain a whopping 28.2% sugar based 28.2gms per 100gms.

By focusing on the serving size of 31.3gms, the sugar contained can be manipulated to appear low at 8.8gms or 10% of DI, rather than the true figure of 28.2gm/100gms.

Also using percentages captivates your interest. 20% of your daily wholegrain target, which is great if you’re not worried about consuming high levels of sugar (28.2%) and fat (17.3%) or more importantly 9.4% saturated fat, the stuff we should be avoiding.

Well to me a product that contains (8.8 grams/31.3grams) or 28% sugar is confectionery, so a 53 grams Mars bar has 31 grams of sugar so 2 Uncle Toby bars has 17.6 grams of sugar, only half that of a equivalent Mars bar.

It is interesting that the lines can be blurred when it comes to the language used to sell the product, things like “Goodness for greatness’.

I’m not sure what that you would consider vegetable fat, glucose, sugar, emulsifier (Soy Lecithin) & preservative 220 as being good for you, Goodness implies healthy which sounds a bit strange given this ingredients listing.

The BIG picture of the dripping stick of honey & an image of almonds implies that “Honey” and “almonds” constitutes a significant proportion of the ingredient listing, rather than a meagre 1% each.

A better system would be using the “Traffic light” system which has been introduced by the City Of Melbourne, which would mean that the Uncle Toby bars would be given a red for sugar & saturated fats, orange for general fats and green for salt.

Have you ever looked at food packaging and wondered what the word “fresh” really means?
According to the Australian Macquarie Dictionary, the word fresh means: newly made or obtained etc, not canned or frozen, not preserved by pickling, salting drying, etc

So when you see Orange juice called “Australian Fresh” or Olives in oil called “Always fresh”, is this a subtle way of getting the word “fresh” onto the packaging by having the word in the company name but not in the products description?

The Australian Fresh Orange juice has a used by date of 4th September 2010 (Used by 02 SEP 10L L3 18:43 on packaging), as I purchased the juice last night, the 17th so allowing for the manufacturing and distribution cycle of perhaps 2 days, and assuming the product was delivered yesterday, is a 20 day old product still considered fresh?

Foods Standards Australia and New Zealand doesn’t have guidelines in regards to food labeling, this is handled by the various state bodies. In Victoria this covered by Human Services under their Food Safety and Regulatory Activities Unit.

Ultimately it comes down to what a court deems the health claim or term to be true, funny enough it comes down to the definition in the Macquarie Dictionary and what a lay person would consider to be true.

A lot of orange juice that is blended from local and imported oranges or even reconstituted juice uses aseptic juice.

So what is aseptic juice anyway, well when the oranges are originally squeezed the juice is heated to kill any bacteria and then kept in cool rooms for anywhere up to 2 years.

Does this sound fresh to you??? As soon as you heat or expose the juice to UV light or oxygen it starts to deteriorate and lose all the nutrients. So the end result is that all that vitamin C needs to be replenished by adding “Vitamin C”. With the “Australian Fresh” Orange juice, vitamin C is added.

Aseptic processing removes most of the nutrients found in orange juice, reduces the taste of the juice and changes its colour.
The other part of the equation is the bulk buying of oranges from local growers when the price is the most attractive and processing the juice for consumption throughout the year.
I’ve never seen on the packaging, oranges have been squeezed on the 8/8/10.

When you buy bread, it usually says “Baked on the xx/xx/xx. I would like to see on the packaging “Oranges squeezed on 10/08/10″

Imagine if you went to a baker and you asked “is the bread fresh” and they said “yes, it was baked 2 days ago” or if you went to a takeaway that had pasta in a bain marie and the response was it was cooked 2 days ago, would you accept this as being fresh?

The other process is “reconstitition” whereby the water is original removed by evaporation from the juice for transportation or storage purposes and reconstituted by adding water back to the concentrate. This process doesn’t sound like the juice would be very fresh?

Getting back to the “Always fresh” “Deli Style Kalamata Olives” would you consider a product that has vegetable oil, salt and preservatives a fresh product? Although “Always Fresh” doesn’t necessarily imply it is fresh, it does confuse consumers when trying to make a decision when looking at a multitude of products.

From 2012 all fast food companies will be required to have basic nutritional information on their menus which is big step forward in fighting the obesity problem facing many Australians.

Since former Prime Minister Kevin Rudd announced a review of food labeling laws for fast food, we have since a more cohesive strategy being put forward.
This was one of the recommendations from the National Preventative Health taskforce.

While food labeling nutritional panels can be quite confusing, the new fast food labeling laws will simplify the process by only requiring the calorie/kilo joule information, saturated fat, trans-fat and salt (sodium) content of the product.

Currently some fast food companies have this information on there websites but go into a fast food outlet and ask for this nutritional information and you get a blank look.

Food standards Australia currently has a great information sheet on what Food Labeling actual means.

Unlike some of the larger fast food players that currently have some nutritional information available on there website only, the new laws will require that the nutritional information is displayed on the menu board or at the cash register.

This will be welcomed by those looking to limit their energy intake with Australian and New Zealand Food Standards recommending a daily intake of 8700kJ, a figure that needs to be adjusted based on age, weight and pregnancy.

It’s interesting though that we can change the Prime Minister in a day but these changes want take place for another 2 years:))

I think consumers may be shocked at the perceived “healthy food choices” may not be so healthy such as salads full of rich, fatty dressings.

I saw an interesting advertisement in the Virgin Voyeur magazine for NW nutrient water advertising it’s super low calorie content.

“Naturally sweetened, super low calorie with only 23 calories per bottle ( if you always pass on dessert you’II know what we mean)”.

I find the whole flavoured water market very interesting, actually the bottled water market in general. What people don’t realise is that there are a lot of nasty toxins in the plastic but that’s another post.

What got me thinking is a beverage company admitting that there regular bottled water products are high in calories and sugar. By this I mean promoting another product in the same range that has 23 calories verses 258 says to me that there regular product is high in calories and sugar or as they say the equivalent to eating a dessert.
While a similar sized can of Coke has 10.6% sugar (63.6gms/600mls sugar), 258 calories, Nutrient Water’s other varieties contain 5% sugar (28.8gms/575mls), 115 Calories which is still relatively high considering tap water has ZERO sugar and calories.

One thing to think about when buying any beverage product, especially those aimed at the health conscious consumer is to look at the percentage of sugar by volume and the total amount of sugar.

Energy is energy and any unused energy is stored in the body, especially the tummy, butt and legs:(((