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India has least healthy packaged snacks, finds George Institute study

Tuesday, 17 September, 2019, 16 : 00 PM [IST]

Rashida Vapiwala

India has the least healthy packaged snacks among 12 countries which were included in the study. These were the findings of a recently-published study by George Institute of Global Health, which added that the country was consistently ranked towards the bottom for all measures of nutritional quality.

When it comes to eating healthy, fresh fruits, vegetables, whole grains and dairy are usually the right choice. Including processed and packaged foods in a ‘healthy’ diet is tricky.

The paucity of time required to cook, the need for convenience and the desire for new foods, flavours and textures have put us in a situation where processed foods are an essential part of a family’s grocery list and eating pattern.

The consumer is inundated with the number of packaged food products available to them on shelves long the long aisles of the grocery stores and supermarkets. It is often a test of attention and focus. This, along with the complexity of the nutrition information on the food labels, makes it impossible for consumers to pick the right products to be included in their diets.

However, making healthy choices is not as complicated, if you learn a smart way to decode the food labels and correctly judge the quality of food in the pack.

In a recent survey conducted in Mumbai by LabelBlind, it was found that:

Over 85 per cent of consumers read the nutritional labels on the food products they purchase
Eighty-four per cent of consumers find value in the information given by nutrition labels on food packs. They believe that food labels influence an informed decision of selecting the right food product
Fifty-eight per cent of consumers find nutrition labels complex and challenging to read and comprehend
Ninety-five per cent of consumers believe that simplifying nutrition labels is necessary and will be highly valuable as they make their food choices

Here are six easy ways to make food labels work in your favour:

Watch out for the front-of-pack health claims

On the front of the packaging, you may have seen things written such as low fat or cholesterol free. These are known as nutrition claims. It is expected that all the manufacturers to be true to their claims, this might not be true in some cases. Often, the consumers get lured into buying a product just because of its nutrition claim. Also, products which are claimed to be low in fat, might have more sugar and additives to make up for the taste and texture of the product. Do not believe what is written on a package just because it says so. Read the label and ensure the product is of good quality.

Serving size
Unfortunately, serving sizes are not standardised in India yet. But, as consumers, you would be aware of some common household measure of food consumption.

Example:

150ml = One cup of tea
240ml = One glass or juice, milk or any other beverages
15g = One tablespoon of butter, peanut butter, jam or sandwich spread
5g = One teaspoon of pickle or chutney
25g = Two to three biscuits, cookies or crackers
27-30g = One small pack of chips of namkeen or two handfuls of nuts
80-100g = One small cup of yoghurt or ice cream scoop
70g = One bowl of instant noodles or instant pasta

While 99 per cent of the nutrition information on the food labels is mentioned per 100g or ml of product, we do not consume 100g or ml of the product at one go. It is essential to understand the nutritional value of one serving of food - how many calories will you consume per serving of food?

Ingredient list
Product ingredients are listed in descending order of quantity — i.e., from highest to lowest in amount. For example, if the first ingredient listed on a product is refined wheat flour, it means that the flour is the largest ingredient used by weight.

Look out for sugar, refined wheat flour, vegetable oil, hydrogenated vegetable fat - on the ingredient list. If one of these are present within the first two ingredients on the list, drop the product immediately.

Beware of the ingredients that you do not understand. This includes additives like preservatives, artificial flavours, artificial colours, flavour enhancers, etc. Try to pick up products which do not contain additives and have clean, natural ingredients that we often use in our kitchens.

Stick to products with clean, short ingredient list.
Hidden sugar
Look out for hidden sugar in the ingredient list on a food package. These are masked as added sugars. These are all different forms of sugar.

Sugar is hidden in packaged foods under 70 possible names. Some examples are sucrose, glucose, maltose, dextrose, high-fructose corn syrup, honey, malt syrup, invert sugar, brown sugar, molasses, jaggery, raw sugar, cane sugar, fruit juice concentrate, agave nectar and maltodextrin.

Sugar, under any name, contains almost no nutrients other that carbohydrates (which are better obtained from whole grains ideally). High sugar intake can throw off your body’s blood sugar balance and cause fat gain.

Low-fat products are usually products with a high amount of sugar. Beware of products that have a sugar content of more than five per cent (i.e., 5g in 100g/ml).

Unhealthy fats

Look for sources of saturated fat and trans-fat on the ingredient list on a food package. Some examples of ingredients that contain these harmful fats are vanaspati, butter, chicken fat, cream, partially hydrogenated oil, pork fat (lard), shortening, and oils such as coconut oil, palm kernel oil, and palm oil.

Read the saturated fat and trans-fat content on the label. Keep saturated fat and cholesterol low and avoid trans-fat completely. Look for foods that have 0g of trans fat and are lowest in saturated fat and cholesterol.
Foods made with healthy unsaturated oils (olive, canola, safflower, etc.) are better bets.

Salt and sodium
Like its cousin sugar, sodium is a part of your packaged foods in many forms. Table salt being the largest contributor of the sodium content of the food, other contributors are ingredients like sodium bicarbonate, monosodium glutamate, sodium benzoate, etc., which pump in sodium via various categories of food additives.

To keep your salt intake in check, compare the calories (energy) and sodium content of the pack. Sodium should be less than or equal to the calorie content of the food.

For example, if a pack of namkeen provides 300 calories per 100g, the sodium content should be less than or equal to 300mg per 100g of namkeen.

If your health conditions require serious restriction of salt, choose low-salt or low-sodium foods, or unsalted versions.

While the nutrition information table (or the nutrition facts panel) is a standard format set by the USFDA and adapted across the world, the front-of-pack (FOP) labelling methods vary across countries and regions.

FOP labelling research has widely been conducted in Europe and North America. Studies have shown that FOP labelling is more likely to influence non-health conscious shoppers that a detailed nutrition facts panel.

Nutrition facts panel take more time to read and comprehend, whereas FOP health claims are concise, easy to find, simple and clear, even to those consumers who have little interest in eating healthy.

Some FOP labelling methods	Country	Description	Symbol
Traffic light labelling	Great Britain	Using front of pack labels is really useful when you want to quickly compare different food products. A combination of colour codes (traffic lights) and nutritional to show whether a product is high (red), medium (amber) or low (green) in fat, saturated fat, salt and sugars, and how much energy (calories and kilojoules) it provides.
NutriScore	France, Spain	Five-colour nutrition label (or 5-CNL) to allow a comparison of similar products and enable an informed and motivated decision
Health Star Rating	Australia, New Zealand	The purpose for the Health Star Rating is to provide a visual comparison of like-for-like products, to assist consumers into distinguishing and choosing the healthier options. Ratings scale by half-star increments between half-a-star up to five stars, with the higher the rating, the healthier the product. These scores are determined through the use of the Health Star Rating Calculator
The Nordic Keyhole	Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Iceland	The Keyhole is a food symbol that identifies healthier food products within a product group. Choosing foods with the Keyhole symbol makes it easier and less time consuming to find healthier products in food stores. Foods labelled with the Keyhole contain less sugars and salt, more fibre and wholegrain and healthier or less fat than food products of the same type not carrying the symbol.

Consumers struggle to comprehend nutrition labels on food packs. Technical information on food labels stating complex ingredients, nutrition facts, daily recommended values, serving sizes, allergens and more leave consumers overwhelmed, leading them to make uninformed and unsafe choices that often serve contrary to their desire for choosing food that promotes good health and well- being.

The next time you shop for packaged foods at a grocery or online, you can pick healthier options by reading the nutrition information table more carefully than the last time. Looks for symbols or logos that mark healthier products and cut the clutter.

It is essential to be empowered to make informed and mindful choices of what we eat, to keep themselves emotionally and physically healthy, with less dependence on curative interventions.

(The author is founder, LabelBlind.)