Food 'traffic lights' proposed

Green for go and red for stop should apply to people's eating habits as well as driving, the Canterbury District Health Board says.

More than 6000 submissions have been received on the New Zealand-Australian review of food-labelling law and policy.

CDHB's submission calls for a new traffic-light label on food indicating how often it should be eaten.

Green would identify the food as healthy and therefore should be eaten often, amber as less healthy so eaten sometimes and red the least healthy so eaten only occasionally.

The submission said Britain had already adopted this approach.

A British supermarket compared product sales before and after traffic-light labels were introduced. It found a 15 per cent increase in sales of healthier products and a 12 per cent decrease in sales of the less healthy.

The board's report said obesity had become a major threat to health in New Zealand. Consumption of too many energy-dense foods was a cause of this epidemic.

It said current labelling did not meet the needs of Maori, Pacific, and low-income shoppers who had higher rates of obesity than other groups. A new user-friendly system with consistent front and back-of-pack labelling was the answer, it said. The traffic light would be on the front, while the back should have a standardised table with information on energy, protein, carbohydrates, sugars, fibre, fat, saturated fat, trans fat, and salt.

"Where possible, foods prepared in restaurants, lunch bars, etc, where they are part of the regular menu should have traffic-light shelf signs and /or signalling as to whether the food is a high fat, sugar or salt product," the submission said.

The CDHB said health claims should not be allowed on food packaging because producers would focus on one healthy aspect of a product and ignore unhealthy ones.

"Breakfast cereals with moderate fibre content may claim health benefits due to the fibre despite the fact that the cereal contains high sugar levels," it said.

With a traffic-light system, producers might reduce the sugar levels to try to get a green rating.

Coupland's Bakeries chief executive Annette Campbell said she did not support the traffic-light system which made some foods "bad".

"There needs to be some kind of standardisation, but it needs to be where no food is seen as a horror food because none are if taken as part of a sensible eating plan."

Different people needed to eat different foods at different times, she said.

"It's trying to be a one-stop shop for everyone and people aren't like that."

Campbell said bakers supported the Nutrition Foundation's e-mark system where foods were given a number up to five indicating the amount of energy a food contained and a colour showing how long that energy would sustain you.

- © Fairfax NZ News