| New Ways to Read Labels |
| Health |
| Written by Theresa |
| Monday, 25 October 2010 06:13 |
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Health Canada had us waiting for their big announcement last week about nutrition panels on packaging. While Canadians waited with great speculation (I know, it didn’t even hit your radar) I hoped that some of the holes in our system would be plugged. In Canada, the back panels are regulated and the advertisements and claims on the front are somewhat watched but the truths are still sometimes hard to glean. From the manufacturer’s point of view, it is hard, I know. They have to standardize some key information and do it in two languages on limited space. Let’s face it, like anything, some do it better than others. The key issue for me is the serving size. My (naïve) hope with this announcement was that there was now some kind of regulation that all serving sizes would be streamlined. All cereals MUST present in a ¾ cup portion, all crackers would state the facts for 4 crackers (which is roughly equal to one slice of bread so we could compare), all salad dressings should be for a reasonable 1 Tbsp portion. This way, we could learn what constitutes a portion (‘cause we’ve got that way wrong in our culture) AND be able to compare brands. But nope. The big announcement was that they are going to teach us how to read. Instead of fixing the loophole that makes the package confusing, there is now a program to communicate that there is a loophole that makes the packages confusing! There is so much further we could go with this to help us make smarter decisions about what we put in our bodies. It is particularly crucial when it comes to feeding our kids. The panels are based on a 2000 calorie per day diet and all percentages are weighed against that. This average assumes that you are a moderately active, average sized adult. A growing child would eat much less than the 2000 calories as would a dieter, elderly person or someone who is less active. So when a package says that 1 serving of this food represents 25 % of the DV of sodium, you need to know that is on quarter of the maximum amount that an average, healthy ADULT should consume. For a six year old, it could be up to 50% of their daily max. The new initiative is a good one http://www.hc-sc.gc.ca/fn-an/label-etiquet/nutrition/cons/dv-vq/index-eng.php , to guide Canadians in knowledge, this too has to happen. I think the problem, however, still exists. Labels are confusing because they are inherently flawed, not because we can’t read them. What do we really want our food labels to tell us? I think we want to know what’s in each box, is that so hard? |
