Food Labels: Brits Vote to “Keep It Simple”
In a recent poll, 80% of consumers (along with the British Medical Association) preferred a simple “stop light” food label to a long list of percentage figures of recommended daily amounts. The stop light icon simply categorizes food as containing low (green), medium (yellow), or high (red) levels of the following ingredients:
- Fat
- Saturated Fats
- Sugar
- Salt
The guideline daily amounts (GDA – the rough equivalent of America’s RDA system) supporters argue that the stop light is an oversimplification, and does not effectively convey all the important nutritional value of food.
What do you think? Would you like to see this sort of labeling in the US?
This post originally appeared on Dr. Val’s blog at RevolutionHealth.com.
YES!
This would be disastrous. We all need to know much more about the food we eat than those over-simplified labels allow.
I don’t like this system. We’re not idiots. I want to know exactly what is in my food and in what amounts. The light system is arbitrary because one person’s green light might be somebody elses yellow light. I’m sure that certain food companies would object if all of their food had red lights on it. I think if a person’s food always had red lights on it then they would just start to ignore the system all toegther. Sort of how smokers ignore the warnings on the cigarette packs.
Very interesting comments, thanks!