Food labelling: information or propaganda?

Posted on Thu, 25 Feb 10

What if everything you had been told about nutrition was wrong? The health claims on the labels of processed and packaged foods are often misleading and designed to trick you into eating food that is bad for your health, even so called health foods.

Soft drink with zero calories, breakfast cereal that is high in fibre, bread with added vitamins, yoghurt that improves your digestion, margarine that lowers your cholesterol, snack bars with added antioxidants; just because a product claims a health benefit doesn’t mean its good for you. Here are some common ways food labelling can trick you.

“Healthier” food can cause you to overeat.

Health claims confer an aura of healthfulness, a “health halo,” that can cause you to overeat products of poor nutritional quality. Low-fat labels for example lead people to eat 16-23% more total calories.

“Healthier” processed foods are not necessarily healthy.

Manufacturers can manipulate snack food ingredients by replacing fat or sugar with other ingredients that improve appearances but have little or no affect on nutritional quality.

Health claims can rarely be verified.

Claims of health benefit can rarely be proven, and even if a particular ingredient may improve health the product may not. A healthy diet contains thousands of nutrients that interact in complex ways to promote health. Simply adding antioxidants to a breakfast cereal and claiming a health benefit for example is deceptive.

Claims based on individual nutritional factors are misleading. 

Food labelling often ignores potential adverse effects while focusing on health claims. The label on a  loaf of bread for example may focus on fibre content while ignoring added salt and sugar.

Be label savvy, or better yet avoid processed and packaged foods. A diet that is based on minimally process foods such as fresh fruits and vegetables, whole grains, legumes, nuts and seeds and lean meats is best for your health and wellness. Unfortunately the healthiest foods rarely try to trick you into eating them. 

Reference

Nestle M, Ludwig DS. Front-of-package food labels: public health or propaganda? JAMA. 2010 Feb 24;303(8):771-2.