http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-18034074

The traffic light system sounds pretty brutal

One of the biggest travesties of this is that the portion sizes used when coming up with these charts is woefully unrealistic - I honestly think the Food Standards Agency needs to step in and change it. For example, I've seen some pizzas which suggest a "portion" is 1/4 of the pizza - this just doesn't reflect actual consumer habits IMO and on that I think the nutritional information is misleading by making it seem healthier than it is.

The absolute worst of those is when you buy one of those pre-pack salads or pasta dishes for lunch, and it is only really enough for one person for lunch, and in tiny letters next to the dietary information it says that the figures are for 'one third of contents'. Which works out to be 50G weight of food or the equivalent of about three forkfuls of stuff. GTFO.

Not only should they be required to produce labels with letters that are easily legible, they should be required to a) say how many portions are in the package and b) label with dietary values for that amount of stuff.

I thought they did?
I can clearly recall seeing 'Serves 6' for instance, and then a list of what's in a, say, 200g serving.

Different shops use a different labelling scheme, and are no doubt designed with commercial goals in mind. What's needed is a standard labelling system so goods urchased from shop A can be accurately compared to those from shop B.

The reason so many are people are fat is largely down to portion control. Of course if you eat 4 portions of pizza and 6 portions of potato salad then it's going to be unhealthy...

Who decides what a "portion" is?

Presumably dieticians work it out based on the average needs for your average human living in the UK in the early 21st century.

Good question, but I would suggest it should be based on WHO recommendations for daily calorie, fat, protein and carbohydrate intakes. It obviously also depends on whether the product is intended to be an entire meal or simply a part of it.

Completely agree. The portion sizes are sometimes unrealistic. The pizza scenario is interesting. A Goodfella's frozen pizza is around 500 cals per portion (which is half a pizza). A quarter of a pizza is only a portion if as part of a meal eg chips, beans, salad, etc. Completely agree it is manipulation. Doing it per 100g IMO is even more difficult in that you then have to muliply the information which can be gangly/awkward. Per portion is fine as long it then states how portions there are in the pack.


I'm surprised by some of this stuff. I've seen a salad lunch pack (with fork) with two servings!

I'm not bothered by a traffic light system or a pie-chart info. As long as the info is on the front of the pack and easy to read, I'm happy. What I do want is all those "low fat" and "0% fat" products is to label how much sugar has been added/contained. Hence, the carbs info should be divided into sugars/complex carbs.

It always is on everything I've seen.

In fact, there's already so much detailed information on food I don't understand what anyone could possibly want to add.

The exception is in the bakery sections and restaurants, where there is generally very little information. However, most people don't eat out or buy fresh baked goods every day.

The thing is marketing gets involved. Pretty much all foods do have full nutritional information on them - usually stated per 100g, as stated. However, most frequently that information is somewhere 'hidden' - it's often mixed in with the ingredient list, or on the base of the packet and often in pretty minuscule type. Whereas the traffic light information will often be in a big, eye-catching graphic next to the packshot image on the front. It will also often be utterly useless, as in the examples given here it's listed for one quarter of a pizza or half a pre-packed salad.

Basically while many companies are complying with the law in listing nutritional information on the packet, they are actually using the traffic light info to if anything mislead the consumer into believing at first glance that their product is much more healthy than in fact it is.

That needs to stop.

Jon

People need to grow up and actually take responsibility for what they eat and not just blindly blame the evil manufactures for tricking us into eating unhealthly.
You as a person decide on what a portion size is anything else is just a suggested "size".
Lets all blindly go down the state/pressure groups knows best and let our life be totally regulated, lets remove that aweful element of individual personal management and then anyone who is fat or gets a condition that could remotely be connected to having a bad diet sue the food companies.

There are too many variants of portion. Be it for man, woman, child, their age, size and activity level, current health etc. Forget the portions and keep the g/100g, maybe split these into sub groups so you can see what has been added (salt / sugar) in addition to the sugars / carbs that are currently there.

Working out your consumption will require very basic calculations, and should even be taught at school. It will be much more exact than people glancing at a colour and assuming it is ok to eat.

Except that no-one is going to do that. The system has to reflect actual consumer habits or it won't help anyone.