H is for Health claims

Health and nutrition claims are now a big selling point for food manufacturers. Packaging is littered with statements about how a product contains healthy ingredients and can help your heart, weight, joints and so on. But consumers could be forgiven for feeling confused. It is not always easy to understand what is on the label (let alone what is not).

Now, however, the law is set to tighten up. The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) is working its way through some 4,000 health claims and recommending what can and cannot be said. The organisation has already given its first set of judgments, rejecting two-thirds of claims. It says, for example, that the claimed benefits of some probiotic yoghurts are not yet sufficiently proven by scientific evidence. All this information will take a couple of years to work through to the food labels themselves.

A number of foods now boast about their omega-3 content. These essential fatty acids have been shown to help your heart and joints, among other benefits. But health campaigners are furious that manufacturers can say they have omega-3s in their food products when they contain plant omega-3s and not the more expensive type from oily fish that have been shown to have health benefits. EFSA has allowed this, but the UK’s Food Standards Agency does not agree.

Elsewhere in health and nutrition claims regulations, consumers will welcome a proposed tightening up in ‘nutrition profiling’, which means basically unwholesome products cannot masquerade as healthy. If a product is to be labelled as low in sugar, for example, it would also have to say if it is high in fat or salt. If it is high in two of these, it wouldn’t be able to boast about its supposedly good nutrition at all.

The underlying irony in this debate is that healthy foods such as carrots and cabbages sit on the shelves with no claims whatsoever. No marketing budget, no blurb.

European Food Safety Authority: www.efsa.europa.eu
Food Standards Agency: www.food.gov.uk
Campaign on EU policy on Omega-3 fats: www.nutritionpolicy.org