Food nutrition labeling is suspected to mislead the world there is no scientific nutrition evaluation method

The picture shows the current nutritional ingredient list on China's food packaging.

“The current description of children's food packaging that is useful for children's health is actually a misinformation.” The first speech on China's disease prevention was held on November 8 at the China Nutrition Society's Symposium on Food Nutrient Measurements. The opinion put forward by Yang Yuexin, director of the Food Nutrition Evaluation Office of the Center for Nutrition and Food Safety, led to a full day of discussion among participants.

“When consumers purchase food, they can only see the content of beneficial nutrients on the label. No one knows what is the amount of other nutrients we don’t need. We don’t know what the balance between various nutrients is. It is not known what effect these interactions of these nutrients will have on the human body," Yang Yuexin cited as an example. The nutrients labeled by milk cookies contain milk, but in fact the milk content is only 7.5%, and the total sugar amount reaches 25.6%. . For another example, the nutritional content of chocolate sauce is marked with calcium, magnesium and a variety of vitamins, but in fact 100 grams of chocolate sauce contains 34-25 grams of fat. “This misleading type of language allows consumers to consume a lot of sugar and fat while taking in the milk, minerals and vitamins needed for human health. Long-term consumption will lead to obesity and cardiovascular diseases. Chronic diseases."

The nutritional science community and the food industry community agree that the reason for the above phenomenon is that so far, the world has not had a pure and scientific evaluation method for scientific nutrition. This has not only led to the inability of countries around the world to directly disseminate scientific nutrition knowledge to consumers, but has also guided the purchase of healthy and high-quality food. It has also been unable to successfully implement the Dietary Guidelines formulated by the United Nations World Health Organization and the national dietary guidelines established by countries as a standard and based on national circumstances.

So, in the face of the array of foods on the market and their own and additional complex nutrients, is there a comparatively better food nutrition science evaluation method in the nutritional science community? At the seminar, Dr. Niyah, the chief scientist of the South African Human Science Research Council, and Eve Het, member of the European Joint Health Claims Action Organization Committee, brought the answers to the above questions.

“This method is a measure of food nutrients,” Nalia explained. “This is the latest international evaluation method that can better reflect the nutritional value of food as a whole. It can comprehensively reflect the interaction of various nutrients in food. The role, reflecting the nutritional quality of the food and the balance between various nutrients, ensures that consumers consume essential nutrients, beneficial nutrients, and appropriate energy to help consumers limit the intake of nutrients that affect health."

Since 2004, many countries in the European Union, as well as in the Americas, Australia, and Asia have begun to try this method. Its evaluation criteria not only conforms to the international dietary guideline standards, but also conforms to the international health nutrition guideline standards. Evaluation results are written directly. In food packaging, "and suitable for people of all cultural levels to read." The results of a consumer survey conducted by Nalia show that “this is a more direct and effective method than telling consumers to eat a certain kind of food. Most people can quickly make correct decisions in just 10 seconds when shopping. Decision."

In the past two years, countries that use food nutrient metrics have separately formulated “Food Nutrition Label Management Regulations” to be enforced in the form of regulations in the future. To this end, Nestlé, McDonald's, Danone, Kraft, Unilever and other international food companies have performed nutritional improvements on all products, reducing the use of sugar, salt, and fats that affect human health in food production. The amount of cereals that can promote human health.

“In 2006, China also carried out a study on food nutrient metrics based on the dietary patterns and health status of the Chinese population. Some progress has been made and the elderly and children groups have been specifically listed. The evaluation criteria are being prepared for inclusion in 2008. The “Food Nutrition Label Management Regulations” and the “Health Food Management Regulations” currently being formulated will then become the main management of the explanations of the food industry’s nutrition characteristics and health in the future. Text.” Just after the introduction of Yang Yuexin, the company’s representative on the spot immediately stated that he actively participated in the research work in order to improve the production technology.

“However, this research is still in a stage of perfect development.” Eva Hert said that there are now more than 20 kinds of research models in the world, and there is no uniform standard for the evaluation results. "We hope that through the joint efforts of the global nutrition community, we will gradually improve the research methods and make the validation criteria for evaluation results more reasonable and globally unified."