Well Fed Network

Posted by Sherry Cermak on Fit Fare.

You know me. I’m that woman who blocks the aisle at the grocery store with my cart, totally oblivious as you maneuver around me. I’ll have a box of cereal or loaf of bread in my hands, staring at the packaging, frown lines etched into my forehead. Yes, I’m a label reader. And I’m sometimes annoyed at how long it can take to figure out the nutritional pros and cons on products. For many busy shoppers, reading nutrition labels takes too much time, so they avoid it. However, they may respond to a new gambit used by food companies, the corporate health logo.

Besides the standard nutrition box on foods, companies such as Pepsi, Kraft and General Mills now feature health logos, that are often misleading, touting the health benefits of their product. For instance, General Mill’s Lucky Charms cereal sports a logo from the American Heart Association, leading a consumer to view the cereal as a good choice, despite it’s excessive levels of sugar. General Mills uses more than 26 different health symbols on a variety of foods high in fat, salt and sugar. Likewise, Frito-Lay uses the “Smart Spot” health symbol on items such as Cap’n Crunch cereal, mini pretzels, Cheetos, popcorn and candy-coated chocolates.

For a busy shopper, these logos can give an illusion of good nutrition that’s hardly warranted. Shoppers might be reassured when they see the American Heart Association’s “Heart Check Mark” on a package. However, the association charges a fee to display it’s logo on a package and markets it to food companies, as a way to boost sales.

With that in mind, establishing a uniform system of nutrition symbols to help consumers understand the diverse and often confusing information on food products is now being proposed by consumer groups. The Center For Science In The Public Interest endorses a system that assigns stars, from zero up to three stars, next to the price on food products. The star system, called Guiding Stars, was created by the  Hannaford supermarket chain. It has been adopted by at least one other chain, Sweetbay. Under the system something like Chocolate Lucky Charms receives zero stars due to it’s lack of nutritional value. Items with three stars are considered the most nutritional.
Senator Tom Harkins intends to introduce legislation to set one system of classifying healthfulness on food products. One option is for the FDA to establish a certification system using red, yellow, and green symbols to show if the food should be a regular part of the diet. This system is already used in the United Kingdom with green, yellow and red dots representing low, medium and high levels of fats, sugar and salt in a food product. Likewise, Sweden has a simpler system, using a green keyhole-shaped symbol to identify the healthiest food choices in food groups.

Why change labeling? While some Americans do read nutrition boxes on products, research shows that many of them have problems understanding them. American food products contain more nutrition information than any other country, yet we are still the fattest nation. It doesn’t appear that the current system actually leads many people to make correct food choices. Perhaps a system that sets one system of classification, without the chaos of competing health claims set by food companies, would be a better solution.

Photo credits: Shopping cart courtesy of MorgueFile. American Heart Association logo courtesy of the American Heart Association. Star program price label courtesy of Hannaford Supermarkets.