Food habits and nutritional labelling of foods
This paper suggests that proposed labelling schemes that categorize foods into bands should be tested prior to use to determine what proportion of foods consumed by the public fall into each category, and that the width of each band might best be based on either having similar numbers of foods in each band or to facilitate discrimination between ‘ healthy’ and ‘unhealthy’ diets.
Abstract
This paper suggests that proposed labelling schemes that categorize foods into bands should be tested prior to use to determine what proportion of foods consumed by the public fall into each category, and that the width of each band might best be based on either having similar numbers of foods in each band or to facilitate discrimination between ‘healthy’ and ‘unhealthy’ diets. As an example, a labelling scheme based on energy density has been tested using weighed diets of nutrition students; both those that were considered ‘healthy’ and those that failed to satisfy the suggestions of the National Advisory Committee on Nutrition Education.