British Dental Health Foundation Welcomes New Food Labelling System

Sample News Big

The UK’s leading dental charity, the British Dental Health Foundation, has welcomed a new food labelling system, which uses a traffic light code to inform people about the nutritional content of their meals and snacks.

Public health minister, Anna Soubry, announced yesterday that a voluntary system of traffic light coding would be introduced to help to inform encourage everyone to make healthier food choices. The measure will hopefully help to reduce rates of obesity and obesity-related illnesses, which are costing the NHS more than £5 billion each year.

Most of the major supermarkets, including Tesco, Sainsbury’s, Waitrose, Asda, Morrisons and the Co-operative, are already using the system, but a number of leading food manufacturers have agreed to use the labelling system, including Nestle UK, Mars UK, PepsiCo UK, McCain Foods and Premier Foods.

Chief executive of the BDHF, Dr Nigel Carter OBE, has welcomed the news and believes that the new system could have a very positive impact in the future. He said that a more consistent labelling system could make a real difference to public health and hopes that food producers and retailers will follow the guidelines outlined by the Food Standards Agency. The system makes it easy for consumers to see what they are eating and to tell in a matter of seconds whether they are making a healthy or unhealthy food choice.

The system uses red, amber or green colours to show the levels of sugar, salt, calories and fat according to the recommended daily intake.

Dr Carter said that dentists have been complaining about the sugar content of many foods for a long time and this system enables consumers to see how much sugar the food they are eating contains. Dr Carter also advised the public to avoid snacking and grazing throughout the day, as this exposes the enamel to constant acid attacks. He recommended eating three meals a day instead.

Join this Discussion

Comments are closed.