What do you think of the labels on food packages?

[Alan]

Hi,

There's a debate, I wouldn't exactly say 'raging' but at least taking place in the UK about the best way to label food packages to give the consumer information about how 'healthy' the food is. There are two schools of thought. The first believes that you should put statistical information about food content in terms of percentages. The second group believe that a traffic light sytem should be adopted so that you can see immediately which foods are 'healthy' and which not.

What do you think?

A
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[Englishuser]

Hi Alan,

How do we know whether food is healthy or not in the first place? There are researchers who have shown that many widely held beliefs on healthy food and eating are wrong. Listing statistical information is therefore the only solution I can think of.

Englishuser

[Aereal]

[Jamie (K)]

The red- and green-light system just imposes someone's opinion on everybody else, and it will require a big fight to change things every time scientific opinion changes on what is healthy and what is not. Think of his situation: When I left for Eastern Europe, margarine was considered in America to be healthier than butter. When I moved back years later, they were saying to stay away from margarine. Changing the green light to a red one will require all kinds of conflict between activist dietary hysterics, the food processing industry, and many other special interest groups. Then they'll start to declare certain foods unhealthy based not on their effects on the body, but based on some activist group's idea of environmental damage or social justice. The system would just be too political.

The system also doesn't take into account that someone might compensate for over-consumption of one "unhealthy" food by staying away from another one.

It also does not consider that some people live to be 100 on beer and schnitzel.

[NinaZara]

I read food labels/expiration date all the time and feel irritated if I cannot find the info that I want. But I agree with aereal, let people decide what they want to eat.

Margarine usually has the 'after taste' but the ones in Japan are just as good as butter and I eat it with Marmite almost everyday since as long as I can remember. They don't sell it(marmite) here in Japan, at least not in Fukuoka and I have to bring it from Malaysia or have my mom send it to me everytime.

I remembered reading about margarine being healthier than butter and vice versa but the trick is to take everything in balance. Here's a tip, drink vegetable+fruit juice 500 to 1000ml everynight and you will feel healthier and have skin like babies!

p/s: You can also try replacing plain water with green tea.The Japanese even have a saying 'Water is bad for you'

[Conchita]

[Jamie (K)]