According to European legislation, the food industry can facilitate Nutritional information about their products voluntarily, and thus was born. NutriScore, A model for front-of-pack food labels (with coloured letters appearing on the main body of the product), with the idea of favouring healthy options, and encouraging the industry to improve the composition of its products.
However, since its launch, it has had many critics, especially nutritionists and dietitians, such as Andrea Surenas. As she admitted in an interview with Europa Press, they should withdraw it because she believes that “enough is enough.”conflict interest behindTheir selection criteria are “not fair at all.”
There’s a lot in it. Fat devil, Without specifying the context of the type of food, in addition to allowing sugar, and adopting refined flour. Coke Zero Light cannot have a good rating and extra virgin olive oil, or tuna in extra virgin olive oil has a good rating. G Or one Dr“He keeps it up.
The idea is to choose the healthiest product.
Nutri-Score as described in his book The Book the Food Industry Doesn’t Want You to Read (Libros Cúpula), is a front marking system that records goals. Scale of 1 to 5 with letters and colors. In theory, its use is justified. To choose the healthiest product “Compared to others in its class,” he adds.
For example, a strong chocolate cereal for children is rated a green “A,” which is the best rating; while extra virgin olive oil might be rated a red “D,” meaning unsuitable for food, or a yellow “C” (neither good nor bad).
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Therefore, he insists, “It is not a good selection criterion.“Because, among other arguments, he sees that”confuses the consumer“In fact, Surenas stresses that there are other ways to do this, and gives the example of the Chilean registration system, “which is absolutely fairer with the information it provides to the consumer.”
We eat worse than we think
Another of Surenas’ accusations in his book is that we do not eat as healthy as we think, and he gives the example of that: Galitus Maria“One of the things is the misuse of biscuits that we consider healthy, because they are sold to us that way, and they are even part of the breakfast of the stars in hospitals, but they are.” industrial bakery They can have More sugar than a croissant”
Another example he points to is the proportion of food we eat throughout the day, the project creator argues. With coconutWe must eat 50% vegetables “Hardly anyone can reach this level.”
Likewise, he asserts that we take fruit As juice often, because he thinks it’s healthy, and it’s like eating fruit, although when the fruit is liquefied the sugar becomes free sugar and behaves in the body just like a soft drink. “That’s why the fruit is always peeled and whole,” he stresses.
On the other hand, it mentions consumption.AwsHow much do you think you can eat in a week at most? This nutritionist reveals that it can be eaten daily, “It’s More nutritious“And it does not harm our health. It also warns against products that contain attached a light And, as he points out, “there is no product that leads to fattening or slimming on its own, but rather everything depends on our entire diet,” and these products are “a light“This just means it has fewer calories, sugar or salt, although it doesn’t mean it’s healthy or calorie-free.”
“We eat worse than we think and more often because there are so many of them.” Techniques I Extra informationI wrong information “About nutrition, the consumer ultimately does not know what is right and what is wrong,” laments this nutritionist. Which is why she says she just published The Book the Food Industry Doesn’t Want You to Read (Libros Cúpula), a booklet on the half-truths in the food industry so we buy more or with the main myths about nutrition.
Beware of environmental products
It is recommended that it is better to buy the products. No label Right away, go shopping at marketAlthough he stresses that the problem is that we ultimately need products that make our lives easier, and no one spends a lot of time eating.
He also warns that ” Environmental Releases “Not always the healthiest” he warns because it containsEco sign “It doesn’t have to be ultra-processed: “In the end, we still buy ultra-processed products with poor quality ingredients, but they are environmentally friendly, and they have no health benefits. There are many unhealthy products that carry the ECO label, such as the example of the Eco-friendly cocoa and hazelnut cream, which contains refined sunflower oil and eco-friendly sugar, and these are products that, no matter how environmentally friendly, contain poor quality products such as sugar or poor quality fats, and they are products that confuse the consumer;
Tips for learning to read labels
With all this, Andrea Surenas defends that “if we all bought raw materials, in greater quantities on the market, and less in the supermarket, there would not be a big problem either”, and in this sense, it is likely that we would eat healthier; although the current pace of life and the lack of time prevent us from doing so on many occasions, and we go more to supermarkets to make the purchase, where it is very easy to access them. Super processors.
In his opinion, the solution here is to educate the consumer to identify healthy products and unhealthy ones, and which ingredients to avoid on the label because “open, heated, ready-made products are healthy,” but the problem is that “they go unnoticed or are mixed in with the ultra-processed stuff that the industry makes to look healthy.”Rich in fiber‘, ‘digestive‘, ‘a light‘, or ‘High protein‘.
Among other tricks for reading labels, this nutritionist asks to consider the degree of modification of the product and its mission: “A healthy treat will have received little modification and the mission will be Extend productive life From the product or Food SafetyBoth ingredients and additives will have this purpose. They tend to have short labels, with names they consider healthy. One acidic substance a citric acidFor example”.
While in super processing their purpose is to “They want to make a lot of money.“With them; they are, in his defense, products with “the cheapest possible ingredients and the most attractive to the consumer”; but in reality they are products “with Lots of modification”
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