Can you easily identify a healthy food by reading its nutrition label? Many people can’t. These labels provide a lot of information to digest (pardon the pun). Who has the time to figure it out while at the grocery store?
That’s why an Australian agency is recommending that a new system be implemented. Instead of a label providing the percentage of recommended daily intake of fat, salt, sugar, and vitamins that a product contains, the agency recommends implementing an easy to understand traffic light system. Such a system would use colours (red, yellow, and green) to rate how healthy a food is.
This recommendation is based on a study by the Cancer Council in Australia indicating that consumers who were shown traffic light labels were five times more likely to identify healthier foods than those shown a percentage daily intake label. The study also showed that these findings held true for all consumers, regardless of ethnicity, gender and socioeconomic status.
I think this type of labeling system makes a lot of sense. Imagine how much easier it would be to choose healthy foods for your family if there was a clear indicator on the front of the package. I know it would save me a lot of time at the grocery store.
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