A study estimates that more than one billion people are affected and reveals that nutritional imbalances continue to rise. Childhood obesity has quadrupled over the course of three decades
I work on OpenFoodFacts, and the big issue is simply the amount of saturated fats and refined sugars there are in a lot of processed foods.
Like, sure, people have to be held personally responsible to some extent, but it should also be on the government to properly regulate how foods are advertised. I really appreciate the Nutriscore system that’s being pushed for in Europe despite the flaws it has, and here in Canada they’ve been making some changes in how certain products are shown on shelves such as requiring labeling if they’re high in sugar or fats and changing the previous confusing labels for energy drinks with a more easy-to-read Supplemental Food Facts label.
End of the day though, if something is still being labelled as being “healthy” when it really isn’t, that’s all it takes to fool the average consumer unfortunately. Stuff like Lucky Charms shouldn’t be advertised to kids as “part of a complete breakfast”, and it’s absurd that a lot of “healthier” alternatives to certain foods are being advertised that way despite only being barely any better than the original product, like turkey bacon or veggie straws.
Lobbyists have even polluted the ingredient label on the back. Now they can list a brand name as an ingredient, then list the ingredients of that. This lets them disguise the most prevalent ingredients if they’re also part of the brand.
Water, oil, sugar, xantham gum, Bob’s secret spice (enough sugar so that if the label were truthful, sugar would be the second ingredient instead of the third, cinnamon, nutmeg).
I never used the ingredient list to determine sugar content, since there also is a table on the back with g sugar / 100 g product. Is that not printed on the products package where you live?
I work on OpenFoodFacts, and the big issue is simply the amount of saturated fats and refined sugars there are in a lot of processed foods.
Like, sure, people have to be held personally responsible to some extent, but it should also be on the government to properly regulate how foods are advertised. I really appreciate the Nutriscore system that’s being pushed for in Europe despite the flaws it has, and here in Canada they’ve been making some changes in how certain products are shown on shelves such as requiring labeling if they’re high in sugar or fats and changing the previous confusing labels for energy drinks with a more easy-to-read Supplemental Food Facts label.
End of the day though, if something is still being labelled as being “healthy” when it really isn’t, that’s all it takes to fool the average consumer unfortunately. Stuff like Lucky Charms shouldn’t be advertised to kids as “part of a complete breakfast”, and it’s absurd that a lot of “healthier” alternatives to certain foods are being advertised that way despite only being barely any better than the original product, like turkey bacon or veggie straws.
Like when Coke argued in court that no reasonable person would think Vitamin Water is actually good for you.
Yes, but I don’t remember if that was before or after Fox News successfully argued that no reasonable person would mistake them for a News Outlet
Lobbyists have even polluted the ingredient label on the back. Now they can list a brand name as an ingredient, then list the ingredients of that. This lets them disguise the most prevalent ingredients if they’re also part of the brand.
Water, oil, sugar, xantham gum, Bob’s secret spice (enough sugar so that if the label were truthful, sugar would be the second ingredient instead of the third, cinnamon, nutmeg).
I never used the ingredient list to determine sugar content, since there also is a table on the back with g sugar / 100 g product. Is that not printed on the products package where you live?