| By :
Alison Withers
Copyright (c) 2010 Alison Withers The lobbying power of the giants of the food industry has been shown once again in a recent decision by the European Parliament on a standardised food labelling system. MEPs were asked to decide between two options. The first was a simple, colour coded "traffic light" system devised by the UK's Food Standards Agency to inform shoppers of levels of nutrients in the food they buy. According to polls carried out by the UK's National Heart Forum and the consumer group Which? shoppers preferred the traffic light system? It has also been supported by the British Medical Association, the British Dietetic Association and the British Heart Foundation. The second, a percentage-based Guideline Daily Amounts (GDA) system, was the preferred option of the food manufacturers, 11 of whom were represented by the Ad Hoc GDA group. The food producers argue that the traffic light approach is too simplistic and judgemental. The composition of a particular food and its place in people's diets, they argue, is too complex for the simple red, yellow, green code that health organisations and shoppers seemed to prefer. The European Parliament opted for the GDA system for uniform food labelling within the EU. It is some kind of progress in that it was agreed that key information on ingredients, including energy, fat, saturated fat and carbohydrates content and specifically salt, fat and sugar content will have to be shown on the front of food packaging. They will all have to be shown as per 100ml, per 100g or per portion. It could be three to five years before it's introduced to allow time for large and smaller producers to and there is much still to be discussed. Some of the EU politicians are concerned about other misleading information on labels, such as country of origin, and also there are debates about how readable the lettering should be. It's possible that the new legislation will insist on country of origin labelling for meat, poultry, fish, dairy produce, fruit and vegetables. Others are concerned that the European Commission is proposing an excessive amount of information on labels. German MEP Renate Sommer is one of those who have suggested that the amount of information being proposed is excessive. She also pointed out that the definition of a portion will need to be more precisely defined. What does not appear to have been discussed, however, is how the food has been produced. There's been no mention of whether food labelling should include a clear indication of whether it is organic, natural and whether the ingredients have been produced on farms using such products as the new ranges of low-chem agricultural products including biopesticides biofungicides and yield enhancers being researched by Biopesticides Developers, which are arguably better both for human health and for the environment. Shoppers have increasingly demanded healthier and more natural food products as they have become more concerned about the effects on both their health and the environment of some of the older generation of chemical fertilisers, growth hormones and other additives used in the past. At the same time farmers all over the world are being asked to produce more on the same amount of land to feed the growing global population, but equally there needs to be a way to increase productivity in a way that is sustainable and doesn't exhaust the land. But in the absence of some clear agreement about definitions of "natural" and "organic" how does any of us know just what exactly we are buying from the supermarket shelves? Seemingly consumers could have to wait for some time before they get a clear, universal and understandable labelling system.
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