Food Labels: % DI or Traffic Light Model?
With the aim to reduce the prevalence of obesity in Australia front of pack food labels may be introduced to help consumers make the right choice when buying food products. There are currently two different models under consideration for front of pack food labels. There is the Percent Daily Intake (%DI) Model and the Traffic Light Model. Most people will have already seen the %DI Model being implemented particularly on Kellogg's breakfast cereals. The Traffic Light Model is what is currently used in the UK.
%DI labelling is based on the average adult's energy requirements of 8700kJ. The
%DI label on the front of the food product states the %DI per serving for energy, protein, fat, saturated fat, carbohydrates, total sugars and sodium, as well as the actually amount in kilojoules, grams or milligrams (which ever is appropriate).
Traffic light labelling involves 4 coloured circles on the front of the food product for fat, saturated fat, sugar and salt. There are coloured red, amber or green depending on the content of the nutrient in the product. For example if the salt content in the product was high it would have red for salt, with amber for moderate and green for low.
Which model do you think should be introduced?
Labels: Nutrition
posted by Flic @ 4:25 pm
4
comments
4 Comments:
traffic lights all the way
Traffic lights look better, but %DI is more useful. Shows how much you should be having, or can have before it's more than you should be having.
By comparison, traffic lights looks like "this is ok to eat, but this one you can never eat", so I'd just get confused and ignore it. :P
McD's has %DI on their stuff too. Quite useful eating a burger and seeing that I shouldn't eat anything else all day :P
Ah, but the thing is Chris, do you know what your daily energy requirements are? I'm sure it is not exactly 8700kJ. Nor would it be for almost the entire population. So when you add all the percentages on your burger, fries and coke, and you realise that you can't eat anything else all day, is this really true? Basically if your energy requirements are not 8700kJ then the percentages are no use to you at all.
%DI isn't going to stop you eating that burger, fries and coke though, is it? But if your burger has a red light for fat, your fries have a red light for fat and salt and your coke has a red light for sugar, I'm sure you'll have second thoughts on whether you'll munch into them again. But then again, most of know that maccas is bad for us, yet we continue to eat it anyway.
If the %DI model is followed properly, basically will still eat whatever they won't, although will have to stop eating much earlier in the day. Which will result in the consumption of the wrong foods and not enough of the right foods, because they simply can't fit in. Whereas with the Traffic Light model, the right food should be consumed, but the quantity is not defined.
Have to say I'm definitely with Emma on the matter. Traffic lights all the way. Get people eating the right foods, then we can work on the quantities later.
"But then again, most of know that maccas is bad for us, yet we continue to eat it anyway."
I think this is gonna be the case no matter which you use, and not just applied to McD's.
Also, if I saw something that said "90% of recommended DI of xyz" then I'd be more likely to notice and either eat less/none of it in preference of something else than if I saw a red light next to a green light.
I think it probably comes down to the individual as to what you'd do with either model. You've been studying this, so your mind is trained a particular way, I studied maths, so I take more notice of numbers.
=)
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