Do You Think These Foods Are Good for You?

HOW difficult can it be to recognise good food? The Government thinks we need of bit of assistance in that department given the widespread confusion over what’s healthy and what’s not. For about two years it has been considering introducing some sort of "traffic lights" system, which would label foods green (healthy), amber (all right in moderation) and red (junk).

So the Food Standards Agency has come up with a formula called "nutrient profiling". A food is analysed according to various nutritional qualities – protein, salt, sugar, fat, fibre and so on – then points are awarded for good qualities or deducted for bad qualities. This is then averaged out to give an overall nutritional score, which forms the basis of a red, amber or green label.

It sounds deceptively appealing and the answer to confused consumers’ dreams. A clear "label of labels" that will be a lot easier to understand than the baffling nutritional boxes on foods, which often go unread. But nutrient profiling is far too narrow a way to look at the wholesomeness – or otherwise – of food.

First of all it misses the most fundamental and useful distinction you need to make – that between processed food and its whole, unprocessed natural equivalent. Using the nutrientprofiling formula, a lovingly matured, carefully handmade cheese made from organic milk might be given a red, or at best amber, label because it is relatively-high in fat, while a low-fat processed cheese spread made with artery-clogging, chemically hardened vegetable fats earns a green one.

And what happens to avocados?

They are one of the best sources of vitamin E, which is essential for good health, but they are also high in fat and calories. They might be given an amber label because nutrient profiling does not award points to foods that are naturally rich in protective vitamins or micronutrients.

Might grass-fed beef get only an amber rating while intensively reared chicken gets a green one, because the latter has fewer calories and is lower in fat? Give me the beef over the chicken every time.

And while natural foods that have sustained us for centuries fall foul of the traffic lights approach, many over-processed technofood constructions will be graced with a green badge.

Just think of the typical diet cola which contains no real anything, just a ghastly chemical concoction of additives and artificial sweeteners. It would score well for being low calorie, low fat, low sugar and low sodium yet have no deductions for the use of dodgy chemical colourings and acids because additives are not covered under the nutrient profiling system.

With a traffic lights scheme in the offing, you can be sure that industry technologists are already at work figuring out how to reformulate products to get green or amber lights by using a nutritional virtue to compensate for a nutritional vice. It will leave us just as confused as we ever were.

If the Government really wants to improve our eating habits, it has to make itself unpopular with food processors and spit out the truth.

Avoid processed food and cook more from scratch using raw ingredients. It really is that simple.