EDITORIAL: Hearing on Nutrition Symbols Gives Food for Thought

By The Pantagraph, Bloomington, Ill.

Sep. 21–We can’t give a green light to color-coded food-nutrition labels when the public is still trying to figure out the shades of meaning in the terrorist-threat-level system.

Maybe a “traffic light” theme works in Britain to tell shoppers if a product has too much salt, fat or sugar. But we have visions of American shoppers wondering if terrorists have attacked their green beans or if hijackers are on their plane because of a red dot on the peanuts handed out by flight attendants. What’s next — calories depicted as speed limit signs?

A traffic light system that indicates whether a food is low, medium or high in salt, fat and sugar sounds too much like Goldilocks determining which bowl of porridge is “just right.”

It was among the ideas discussed at a recent hearing by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration on nutrition labeling.

The FDA is only in the information-gathering stage. There are no plans for instituting a mandatory front-label system to accompany existing rules for nutrition information. However, at least one member of Congress, Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, is leaning that direction.

Perhaps we would have more confidence in this talk about adding symbols to nutrition labels if the federal government hadn’t stumbled while jogging up the food pyramid.

However, as various food companies adopt their own nutrition rating systems or incorporate logos from health organizations (such as the American Heart Association’s “heart healthy” symbol), the need for uniform standards increases.

When consumers are comparing Pop-Tarts to Toaster Strudels, they don’t want to be comparing apples and oranges.

The easier we make it for choosy consumers to recognize which foods best fit into a healthy diet, the more likely they will be to attempt to make healthy choices.

A spokeswoman for the British Food Standards Agency told the Associated Press that sales of food with green and yellow symbols increased after it adopted the “traffic light” system.

But we suspect nutritional jaywalkers in the United States will still cross against the light in many cases. Research indicates that taste remains the leading factor when Americans choose what to eat.

Easily understood nutritional information could help consumers make healthier choices among the items that pass their taste tests. The matter is worth study.

However, leave the traffic light symbols to those people who drive on the “wrong” side of the road.

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Copyright (c) 2007, The Pantagraph, Bloomington, Ill.

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