The great label scandal

The great label scandal

With my lunchtimes occupied by cardio, weights, and squats, I try to compliment my hard work with a healthy diet. My extreme cheat days are balanced out by a lot of protein, and vegetables during the week. Although I can be disciplined, my massive downfall is my sweet tooth. I don’t think there is one category I don’t like: cakes, biscuits, sweets, chocolate, popcorn—I’ll have it all.

In an attempt to keep this under control and not completely eradicate my work at the gym, I am always on the lookout for the best, tastiest, real-tasting, sweet but healthy snack.

I’ve certainly tried a few! I’ve sampled a large proportion on the market—did I mention I had a sweet tooth? There have been some that have had a bite and then seen the bin, and there have been some that have stuck around as my favourites.

The first thing I check on the label is the sugar content (I usually like less than 4%,), then I’ll take a look at the protein content, and how many unpronounceable ingredients there are (I usually stay away from those ones.)

Recently, I found my favourite bar so far. It’s fresh, has only a few Ingredients, is low in sugar and in calories. Following having these, all the bars I previously liked now tasted synthetic with a weird after taste. I was sold. I googled the bar to order a batch of them to the office and what I found was quite concerning: not one, but a bunch of news reports on what is printed on labels and misleading customers.

It turns out that the US Food and Drug Administration rejected the bars as they did not meet the legal requirements for using the nutrient claim ‘healthy’ on a food label. They had too much saturated fat to justify the term ‘healthy’ and also didn’t contain enough antioxidants to meet this claim.

How many consumers are being mis-sold and who can we trust? The world is being convinced into leading a healthy lifestyle, however with so many brands acknowledging this and now promoting their brands as ‘healthy,’ should we be educating consumers in a different way to allow them to look past all the words and pretty pictures?

I think our supermarkets also have a part to play and should accept some form of responsibility. We already have a ‘free from,’ and healthy aisle, but it looks like they are also falling down the same trap. This healthy aisle just includes brands that claim to be healthy. Supermarkets need to identify what can be placed in this aisle to allow consumers without full nutrition education to know what they are choosing.

Having laws in place such as the ones by the Food and Drug Administration is a good step to stop companies from claiming incorrect health claims, and therefore reduce consumer misleading. But it’s not enough. Come on health companies, take some responsibility too, please!