Dennis the 'Bloody Peasant'
12th July 2012, 11:47
Article I found interesting about the food industry's continued attempts to prevent clear, honest labelling of food.
Britain came close to adopting a traffic-light system of compulsory food labelling to grade the health impact of food products - but, as Jacques Peretti reports, opposition from within the food industry prevented it happening.
In the crucial 15 seconds a consumer takes to decide on a supermarket purchase, the labelling is often the deciding factor.
It means being able to know - at a glance - what goes in to what we eat. But for the food industry, it means being told what they must put on their packaging.
A significant part of the food industry is against legislated labelling. They want the freedom to decide how best to disclose the levels of fat, salt and sugar in their food so that it doesn't damage sales.
Labelling can easily lead to unintended consequences for the consumer according to Pierre Chandon, a visiting Scholar at Harvard Business School, whose research focuses on the ways in which fattening foods can be marketed as healthy.
Prof Chandon tested his theory by re-labelling familiar chocolate treats as "low fat".
"We found that just because [the treats] were called low fat, people consumed up to 50% more of them," he said.
"This is something I call 'the health halo'. It's the idea that when the food is marketed as being healthy, people think it has less calories."
(Full article at http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-18767425)
Britain came close to adopting a traffic-light system of compulsory food labelling to grade the health impact of food products - but, as Jacques Peretti reports, opposition from within the food industry prevented it happening.
In the crucial 15 seconds a consumer takes to decide on a supermarket purchase, the labelling is often the deciding factor.
It means being able to know - at a glance - what goes in to what we eat. But for the food industry, it means being told what they must put on their packaging.
A significant part of the food industry is against legislated labelling. They want the freedom to decide how best to disclose the levels of fat, salt and sugar in their food so that it doesn't damage sales.
Labelling can easily lead to unintended consequences for the consumer according to Pierre Chandon, a visiting Scholar at Harvard Business School, whose research focuses on the ways in which fattening foods can be marketed as healthy.
Prof Chandon tested his theory by re-labelling familiar chocolate treats as "low fat".
"We found that just because [the treats] were called low fat, people consumed up to 50% more of them," he said.
"This is something I call 'the health halo'. It's the idea that when the food is marketed as being healthy, people think it has less calories."
(Full article at http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-18767425)