"Healthy" & "lean": two food label words you can't trust
Posted by kathryn in Labels & advertising
A couple of weeks ago I asked what’s wrong with these ready meals?. In amongst the excellent answers, a couple of readers talked about food label trickery.
And they’re right. Like natural, lite and light, the words healthy and lean don’t have any legal definition.
Food manufacturers can slap those two words on any products they want. It gives the food the aura of wellbeing. The hope is you’re a time-poor consumer who wants to eat well. So you’ll pick up the “healthy” product, instead of it’s nearest competitor.
Ignore the marketing. Compare the nutrition panels for yourself and make up your own mind about what’s healthy.
17 October, 2007
Comments
I liken the average Australian’s knowledge of food labels to their knowledge of the upcoming Federal election. People know about it, they just don’t know about it – if you get my drift…
Websites like CHOICE can provide the public with independent information on things like frozen meals and vitamin and nutrient waters (http://www.choice.com.au/viewArticle.aspx?id=104264&catId=100406&tid=100008), but their reviews are probably not regular enough and it doesn’t help that most people don’t really seem to know about CHOICE either.
FSANZ needs to step up and help consumers who are time poor and uninformed make the real healthy choice they think they are making.
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