469

Nutrition

A document prepared by the nutrition advisory committee ofthe Coronary Prevention Group* examines in detail thenutritional labelling of foods. Published last week, the documentis being widely circulated for discussion. It is referred to in aneditorial on p 434. We publish below the summary from thedocument and some other extracts.

Nutritional Labelling of Foods: a Rational Approachto Banding

CONSUMERS need clear, informative food labelling which is

readily understood to help them in choosing a healthy diet bypurchasing foods with a known nutrient content. The CoronaryPrevention Group (CPG) has therefore developed labellingproposals in accord with consumer wishes, manufacturing practice,and the nutritional proposals of the Government, of internationalcommittees, and of the medical profession. The CPG supports thecurrent proposals from the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries andFood (MAFF) that the energy, protein, carbohydrate, total fat, andsaturated (plus trans) fatty-acid content of the food should belabelled numerically in terms of the weight of the food. We proposethat this labelling should be extended with the inclusion of sugars,salt, and dietary fibre, expressed in the standard format of foodweight. These inclusions would then bring the MAFF proposals inline with the recent COMA report and with the recommendationsof other expert medical committees.The numerical expression of nutrient content is too complex for

most consumers. Consumer surveys clearly demonstrate the

public’s need for an additional simpler and more meaningful displayof information. The Food Standards second report on claims and

misleading descriptions, the MAFF proposals on labellingguidelines, and the current marketing practice of claiming high,medium, or low nutrient contents in a food have therefore beencombined with nutrient intake goals developed by COMA, by theobesity working party of the Royal College of Physicians, the BMA,and WHO to produce a simple, clear, and meaningful method forclassifying the nutrient content of foods. The nutrient classificationhas been limited to the total fat, saturated (plus trans) fatty acids,sugars, salt, and fibre content of the foods. The data for simplicityand nutritional reasons are expressed either as a percentage ofenergy (for total fat and saturated plus trans fatty acids) or as g/10MJ (for sugars, salt, and fibre). The average daily energy content offoods as assessed by the National Household Survey is 10 MJ (2400kcal).The committee’s proposals include the following division of

nutrients into three bands:

Nutment High Medium LowTotal fat 0’0 energy 53+ 17-5-52 < 17-5

Saturated + trans fatty acids 0’0 energy 22-5 + 7 5-22-4 <7-5

Total sugars: g/10 MJ energy 112+ + 37-111 <37Salt: g/10 MJ energy 7-5 + 2-5-7-4 <2-5Fibre: g/10 MJ energy 45+ 15-44 < 15

The units are different but it is expected that these criteria will not appearon labels-simply some graphical representation of "high", "medium", or"low".The fibre values are given in terms of the new MAFF method of analysis

for both non-starch polysaccharides and resistant starch. Current values infood tables depend substantially on the Southgate method, which gives valuessimilar to the two categories of carbohydrate measured by the new method.

These bandings should be applied systematically to all packagedfoods and to foods provided to catering establishments. A uniformsystem of display should ultimately be adopted in order to avoidconfusion. Techniques for displaying the nutrient categories should

*60 Great Ormond Street, London WCIN 3HR (tel: 01-833 3687).

be developed immediately in discussion with manufacturers andretailers. However, with the consumer’s urgent need for fullerinformation the committee advises that manufacturers, wholesalers,and retailers should be allowed to develop their own systems ofdisplay for the present.None of the labelling proposals designed to help consumer choice

will be effective without a major educational campaign aimed atinforming consumers of the new labelling system and how they canuse the labelling to choose a variety of foods and thereby obtain abalanced diet of an appropriate nutrient content.

* * *

The committee has set out in detail some of the problems withfood labelling in the hope that it will help to persuade interestedparties, with or without major professional or financial involvement,that the proposals have been developed with the interest of theindividual consumer as a primary concern. The consistency andbasis of the proposals have been emphasised, and every effort hasbeen made to avoid developing new policy implications.An infinite number of labelling schemes could have been

developed on an arbitrary or rational basis, but the committeeprefers to retain the official guidelines produced by expertcommittees even where this presents difficulties. For example, itattempted to devise a three-banding system to help simplify coding.It was impressed, however, by the Food Standards Committee’sassessment that the consumer could expect a 50% reduction in fat,salt, sugar, or carbohydrate content if a food was to be considered"low" in this nutrient. This in practice leads to four bands ifconsistent band ranges are to be developed. Is it more important tosimplify the system and accept the discrepancy, or maintainconsistency but have four bands? Manufacturers might be

encouraged to modify their recipes if only small changes wererequired before the reclassification of a food became possible. Thealternative of maintaining four bands, but displaying only the topthree, could still allow manufacturers to claim that the food was"very low" in fat, sugar, or salt.

-

Two other difficulties remain with this labelling proposal. First ithas to be recognised that butter, lard, suet, vegetable fats, and oilsprovide about 100% of their energy as fat. They will then correctlyhave their fat content specified on the label in g/100 g and be codedas high in fat energy. A low-fat spread, however, will also bespecified in g/100 g product but still be coded correctly as high-fatenergy, since 100% of its energy is still derived from fat. Thoseconcerned with producing low-fat spreads will argue that thisapproach is disadvantageous and confusing, whereas manynutritionists and consumers would still consider the informationuseful since it may help to emphasise the need to moderate intakes ofall high-fat energy products. The problem then seems to be one ofexplaining how a claim for a low-fat spread can still relate to aproduct high in fat energy. The committee suggests that this is amarketing problem and should not detract from the generalprinciple of banding as set out in its document.The second difficulty arises in part from the COMA proposal to

include trans fatty acids in the "saturated" category. Vegetable oilshigh in polyunsaturated fatty acids present little difficulty becausethey have only small amounts of saturated fatty acids and little or notrans fatty acids. Vegetable margarines high in polyunsaturatedfatty acids have, however, about 18% of their fatty acids in thesaturated form and about 9% in the trans fatty-acid form. CurrentMAFF proposals are that a high-PUFA margarine must have asaturated plus trans value of less than 30% whereas the proposedupper limit for the medium-high category is 22 5%. Again thecommittee believes that the whole system for producing a coherentlabelling scheme should not be jeopardised by one sector of themarket. Thus the limit of 30% may still be a valuable limit for thesaturated plus trans fatty-acid content of PUFA-rich margarines,but its coding as high in saturated plus trans fatty acids will not beseen as misleading when this product is compared with other foods.The CPG document will be circulated to all major consumer,

retailing, catering, and manufacturing organisations as well as toMAFF and those involved in health promotion. Comments on thebanding system will be welcomed. A final set of proposals will beproduced early in October.