Color-Coded Food: Is It Really That Simple?

The British are currently debating a color-coding system for their food labels, reports the ACSH.

The first currently favored proposal, the "simple traffic light" system with one color indicator for each particular food, will be too vague to help consumers make informed nutritional decisions and create balanced diets. To the system's credit, it does account for a variety of nutritional factors, including calories, saturated fat, sugar, sodium, calcium, iron, and percent fruit and vegetable content. However, the system does not account for the presence of other important nutrients in the diet (for example, both fruit and diet soda would be labeled with the same green light "eat plenty" indicator).

Is this going to be like the Healty Heart Tick? Never mind the fact that a product might be loaded with High Fructose Corn Syrup, or other nutritionally-poor sugars (as long it is low in fat it must be good - say the heart healthy people). Food labelling is good, but can be cleverly manipulated. Who is to say what is the absolute best for all of us?

I can imagine some food manufacturers taking offense at being given a red color code.

Read more about the proposals here.

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