Monday, October 06, 2014

How About a Front-of-Package Health Claim Extension to Canada's Added Sugar Plan?

Was in the supermarket yesterday, and while wandering through the cereal aisle I had a thought.

If Health Canada moves ahead with added (or free) sugar nutrition fact panel labelling, could that information also be used to dictate which products are, and which products aren't, allowed to make nutrition and health claims on the fronts of their packages?

Preferentially, I'm for the removal of all front-of-package health claims, but given I can't see that ever happening, wonder if there might be a compromise where products with non-natural trans-fats, or some predetermined amount of free sugars, would be forbidden from using their front of package real estate to try to coax busy shoppers into thinking they're making a good (or less bad) choice.

Froot Loops should not be allowed to infer they're healthful no matter how much vitamin D might be added to them.