Soon new nutritional logos on our food
Consumer information on the nutritional quality of the food he consumes will becomeincreasingly clearover the coming months. Indeed, the Minister of Health Marisol Touraine, recently announced in the Journal Le Parisien that a test on new nutritional logos will be launched from September 2016 in several major brands.
The purpose of this new approach is not to prohibit the consumer from eating this or that food, but ratherto inform him about the nutritional balance of the latter (in equal comparison of course, that is to say why one yogurt rather than another for example).
What do these logos look like?
2 kinds of logos will be tested. First based on a letter classification from A to E, of different color, representing the basic nutrient contents. These logos will be called NUTRI-SCORE. We can consider that the letter A represents a “healthy” food in all respects.
The second logo model will be called LOGO 4 COLORS SENSE. Here, it will be the colors of the logo that will indicate the desirable frequency of consumption of the food, from the basic nutrient levels. Thus, green will indicate that the food can be consumed very often, blue often, orange regularly in small quantities and purple occasionally or in small quantities.
Approved logos?
The Food Safety Agency (ANSES) has studied the feasibility of these new logos and their effectiveness on our consumption (1)tag. It compared the 2 future classification systems, and found, in a recently published opinion report, that they wereboth of good quality . (2)
How will this new concept be launched?
These new nutritional logos will be tested from September 2016, and for 3 months, in several supermarkets. 50 stores will therefore be drawn at random to carry out the experiment. To make the comparison, some of these stores will have products labeled NUTRI-SCORE, others LOGO 4 COULEURS SENS, and others will not have a logo. More than 800 products in total will be labeled.
Marisol Touraine wishes, by this approach, that the consumer is more active in terms of his health, and also specifies that “eating well, taking care of his health, it does not cost more, contrary to popular belief”.
Stephen Paul is the lead author and founder of My Health Sponsor. Holder of a diploma in health and well-being coaching with more than 200 articles in the field of health, he makes it a point of honor to offer advice based on reliable information, based on scientific research, and verified by health professionals.