Food for thought

Posted by Sue Prince on December 5, 2007 9:46 AM

I’m no expert on health but I do like reading about it. The trouble is, a little knowledge is a dangerous and often confusing thing.

Take the subject of food labelling for instance. There’s an ongoing debate about which system of food labelling is the right one to use. If you opt for the Traffic Lights system you know you’re running into trouble if your shopping basket is aglow with red labels – on the other hand you can eat plenty of greens. It’s quite a simple guide to working out what you can eat lots of, eat occasionally or eat sparingly.

Compare that with the GDA – guideline daily amounts – system, where the labels show percentages of sugar, salt and fat content (plus the number of calories) in each serving. To begin with, how many of us understand percentages? I know I struggle to.

By the time I’ve fished my glasses out from the depths of my handbag, studied the information, worked out what I can eat, calculated how it fits into my GDA quota (never mind the rest of the family’s allocation), I’ve lost my appetite. Lost the will to live, too.

Interestingly, in a recent Traffic Lights v GDA survey carried out by the community-based network Netmums, traffic lights scored best in the ‘at a glance’ category.

Why then have some of the UK’s biggest food manufacturers turned their back on the Traffic Lights system even though the Food Standards Agency firmly believes it’s the easier of the two for shoppers to understand?

With obesity rising, I just wonder when we’ll ever get to grips with the problem.

In the meantime, pass me that bar of chocolate…

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