Latest news with #Nutri-Score
02-07-2025
- Health
Nutrition warning labels are hitting shelves near you — earlier than expected
Health Canada's new front-of-package nutrition warning labels are beginning to appear on store shelves six months ahead of the food industry's deadline. First announced in 2022, (new window) the black-and-white labels alert shoppers if a product is high in sugar, sodium and/or saturated fat, which the federal department says can lead to increased health risks like stroke, obesity, heart disease, Type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure and some types of cancers. I think these can be a really great starting point for people that are looking to use labels as nutrition information sources. But I do think that there are some limitations, said Brittany Brown, a dietitian based in Dartmouth, N.S. ... Right now, it's just going to be kind of functioning as a nutrition warning label, so it's going to give consumers the information when things are high in sodium, high in saturated fat [and] high in sugar, but it's not really going to tell them more details than that. Brown said flipping over the package will show details about percentages of daily value. She said the new label is automatically placed on foods that have 15 per cent or more of the daily value of sugar, saturated fat or sodium. A picture taken on February 28, 2023, shows Nutri-Score scales on the packaging of products sold at a supermarket in Nantes, France. Photo: afp via getty images / Loic Venance If something only has 14 per cent of the daily value of sodium, it's not going to trigger the nutrition warning, so that's a bit of a missed opportunity. The intention behind the labels, according to Health Canada (new window) , is to help shoppers make quick and informed choices when buying food and support health professionals in educating people about food. Brown said other countries have been using front-of-label packaging for years. For example, some European countries use Nutri-Score, (new window) which grades foods between A and E. A foods would be high nutritional quality while E would be lower nutritional quality. Brown said while Health Canada's labels can be useful, they don't address certain complexities around food like cost. We know that food security is a really big challenge that people are faced with. So even if I am looking at the grocery store and I see that something is high in sugar, but my dollar only goes so far, I'm still going to have to choose that food item potentially, Brown said. For example, Brown said things like frozen entrees could end up with these labels, but for some that may be all an individual or family can afford. So I think that there is a bit of a risk with making us feel a little bit more judgy about some of the foods that we're eating, and we really need to be careful about not putting that on to people. Liesel Carlsson, a professor of nutrition and dietetics at Acadia University in Wolfville, N.S., said she thinks shoppers may be surprised when the labels begin to appear on daily staples, like cereal, breads and some dairy products, but she could see that changing with time as companies adjust their recipes to no longer trigger the label. These labels don't look good on packaging, so the real story here and part of the reason that industry was given a very long time in order to get their labels onto their packages is that many industry players will reformulate their products, Carlsson said. But what's most interesting, she said, is that these labels are likely to result in more products that are inexpensive that are still in this highly processed category but are less damaging to health. In terms of the labels themselves, Carlsson said there is evidence to show they're effective (new window) . Even when consumers are not even seeking nutrition information, this type of front-of-pack label will catch people's eyes, she said, but added the look of Canada's labels are a little bit underwhelming, especially when compared to some South American countries, which use large black stop signs to communicate a similar message. Although the food industry has until Jan. 1, 2026, to put the front-of-package labels on the foods, some products already have it. The Nova Scotia-based grocery chain Sobeys, for example, has the label on many of its store-brand products, like Compliments and Big 8. These included items in the frozen food and snack aisle, like microwave popcorn, frozen chicken wings, burgers and pop. We are committed to meeting the Health Canada front of pack labelling requirements and to empowering customers with clear information that supports the choices they make in our stores every day, Sobeys said in an email to CBC News. We have made good progress to make the labelling changes to our Own Brands assortment ahead of the deadline by working proactively with our supplier partners. The labels are mandatory for prepacked foods, but Health Canada notes there are some exemptions. Certain dairy products such as plain milk, plain yogurt and cheese are exempt because they are important sources of calcium that is needed to promote bone health and reduce the risk of osteoporosis. Health Canada said raw, single-ingredient ground meats and poultry are exempt to avoid giving the impression they are nutritionally inferior to whole cuts that do not carry a nutrition label. Butter, sugar, salt and other products used for the same purpose are also exempt. Some products are also exempt for technical reasons, like foods in very small packages. Anjuli Patil (new window) · CBC News
TimesLIVE
01-07-2025
- Health
- TimesLIVE
Most packaged food in Kenya would need health warning label under new rules: report
Almost all of the packaged food and drink sold in Kenya by local and international companies would require a health warning label under newly drafted government rules, according to an independent report shared with Reuters. Kenya released its nutrient profile model this month, and committed to using it to develop front-of-package labels. The report by the non-profit Access to Nutrition Initiative found that under those rules, 90% of products sold by both international companies like Coca-Cola and Nestle and local firms such as Brookside Dairy Ltd and Manji Foods Industries contained either too much salt, sugar or saturated fat. Around two-thirds of the products would also be deemed "unhealthy" based on models used internationally like Nutri-Score, which — unlike the Kenyan model — also take into account positive nutrients. Neither the Kenyan government nor the companies responded to requests for comment. ATNI has previously tracked products globally and in countries like the US and India, but the Kenya report, alongside one from Tanzania, is the first of its kind in an African country.
The Star
10-06-2025
- Health
- The Star
This app is trying to change how people eat
Cheez-Its used to be one of Marissa Gradei's go-to snacks, in part because she thought of them as 'healthier' alternatives to other savory nibbles such as potato chips. That changed three months ago, when Gradei, 27, a social media manager in Fairfax, Virginia, started using a smartphone app called Yuka. The app prompts users to scan the bar codes of food and personal care items – in grocery stores and at home – and then offers a score out of 100 to indicate how 'healthy' it thinks the item is for you or the environment. Gradei's trusty snacks scored a 2 out of 100 – 'bad' for health, according to the app. She hasn't purchased any since. After the Yuka app launched in the United States in 2022, more than 20 million people have downloaded it – a figure that has more than doubled since January 2024. In a recent interview with CNN, Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said he and his wife 'consider it invaluable'. 'You can go into any grocery store, flash it at any product, and you can get a 'go' or a 'no',' he said. But can the Yuka app accurately portray how good a given food is for your health? And should you rely on an app to guide your food choices in the first place? We asked four nutrition experts. How does it work? The Yuka app originally launched in France in 2017 as a tool to help people quickly understand the healthfulness of certain food and personal care products. It expanded to the United States in 2022. After scanning a product's bar code, the app assigns the product a health value out of 100 – with 100 being the best – and a corresponding colour score of excellent (dark green), good (light green), poor (orange) or bad (red). To generate these scores for certain foods, the app uses an algorithm based on three criteria: the food's nutritional quality (60% of the score), the presence of additives and whether the app deems the additives risky (30%) and whether the food is organic (10%). Yuka uses a European labeling system called Nutri-Score to assess a food's nutritional quality. High protein and high fiber are good, for example; high amounts of sugar, sodium, saturated fats and calories are bad. The company has two full-time employees – one with a toxicology background and one with a food engineering and human nutrition background – who sort through the scientific research on about 600 food dyes, preservatives, thickening agents, artificial sweeteners and other food additives. They classify them as 'high risk', 'moderate risk', 'limited risk' or 'risk-free' based on their potential links to health conditions such as cancer, heart disease, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder and infertility. The app is free, although it offers a premium version for between US$10 (RM42) and US$50 (RM211) per year, said Julie Chapon, one of Yuka's co-founders. The premium version includes extra features such as the ability to use the app when your phone is offline. The company does not promote the app through paid advertisements, or take money from food and cosmetics industries, said Chapon, who has a marketing and consulting background. Kennedy's endorsement has most likely helped with awareness, she said, but the app isn't affiliated with the Make America Healthy Again, or MAHA, movement. What do nutrition experts think of Yuka? The app has hit on a real hunger for more clear-cut nutrition information, said Dr Dariush Mozaffarian, director of the Food Is Medicine Institute at Tufts University. 'The public is really confused about what defines a healthy food,' he said. And it can be valuable for people to use their smartphones to help them make better food choices, said Lisa Harnack, a professor of public health nutrition at the University of Minnesota. Anyone can flip over a product and read its nutrition label, she said, but for the average person, it can be burdensome to try to parse the healthfulness of dozens of foods at a time. Scanning a product and glancing at its ranking and color score is much simpler. That said, some experts worry that labelling food as either 'good' or 'bad' can lead to disordered eating. 'I don't like that,' Elaine Siu, a dietitian at the City of Hope cancer center in Duarte, California, said of the labeling system. Instead, she said, people should focus on following a balanced diet overall. This typically involves eating plenty of fruits, vegetables, whole grains, lean sources of protein and healthy fats. And keep in mind that your nutritional needs will vary depending on your health and activity levels, she said, which the Yuka app can't account for. Siu, for instance, advises cancer patients on how to eat. Many are undernourished and could benefit from consuming more calories. But the Yuka app deducts points for high-calorie foods. Several of Siu's patients have refused to drink the nutrition shakes or eat the protein bars she has recommended, she said, because the Yuka app has scored them poorly. Is its rating system trustworthy? The Nutri-Score system that Yuka uses to assess a food's nutritional quality is an 'OK' system, Mozaffarian said. He said he doesn't agree with the idea of penalising foods for calories, since many high-calorie foods can be nutritious. The app labels many nuts and nut butters, for instance, as 'too caloric'. And, Mozaffarian said, it's problematic that Yuka doesn't distinguish between natural sugars and added sugars – the latter of which are most concerning for health. Because there's still a lot we don't know about how food additives affect us, Mozaffarian said, it's 'a little excessive' to devote 30% of the score to their presence. Much of the research Yuka uses to assess the risk level of additives are either observational studies – which can't demonstrate cause and effect – or animal studies that use much higher doses of those additives than what you'd find in food. Animal study results also don't always translate to humans. Siu said she was surprised to see monosodium glutamate, or MSG, categorised as 'high risk'. Although some limited studies have linked the ingredient to conditions such as heart disease and Type 2 diabetes, the amount we normally consume in food has not been shown to cause harm, she said. Siu said she recently used the app on a package of seaweed sheets that contained just 10 calories per serving, and it ranked the product as 'too high' in calories. 'The scoring system is very questionable,' she said. Of the four experts we consulted, none agreed with Yuka's decision to include a food's organic classification in its scoring system. There's no proof of any nutritional benefit from eating organic foods relative to conventionally grown foods, said Melanie Hingle, a professor of nutritional sciences at the University of Arizona. What's the bottom line? The experts largely agreed that it could be beneficial to limit highly processed foods, to which the Yuka app typically gives low scores. Eating unprocessed, whole foods – such as fruits, vegetables, nuts, legumes and whole grains – is associated with reduced risks of various chronic conditions such as Type 2 diabetes, heart disease and some cancers. But you don't necessarily need an app to help you do that. And whole foods typically don't have bar codes you can scan anyway. 'Ideally, the app would include foods that don't come in packages,' Harnack said. 'If these types of foods are missing, it might be easy to overlook some of the best choices in the supermarket.' – ©2025 The New York Times Company This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
Local France
23-05-2025
- General
- Local France
Tartiflette and pastis: The French crisp brand making taste all its own
You'll see Brets crisps taking up a fair chunk of the space on the crisp/potato chips aisle of your local supermarket. And while they do the standard salted, salt and vinegar and roast chicken flavours, they're also not afraid to try something a little different. And that has made them a hit with under-35s in France (and Quebec, where they are also sold) spawning viral tasting videos on social media. We're not just talking basic variations on the theme of traditional flavours here, either – though their cheddar and Roscoff onions is a worthy cheese and onion upgrade. They have done some properly off-the-wall taste sensations. Or otherwise. Advertisement There's wood-fired pizza flavour, yakitori – based on the Japanese skewered chicken; 'petit onions'; a spicy pili pili (a variant spelling of piri piri); jalapeno cheddar – aka cheese and onion for crisp fans with a sense of adventure; cheddar and beer; Carbonara; sundried tomato and balsamic vinegar; pesto-mozarella; falafel; kebab; grilled peppers and chorizo; curry sauce; chili and mint, for that indescribable hot-cold mouth sensation; fruity curry; mustard pickles; honey mustard; and sweet-and-salty flavours. They even do crisps that have a Nutri-Score B rating for healthy people who don't like 'goût'. This has been a marketing masterstroke. Brets is now the second most popular crisp brand in France, with an 18 percent market share. But what about the particularly French flavours? Pastis: yes, there's a pastis flavour Brets, invoking the popular French drink of the same name. The drink tastes of aniseed and licorice, and we're not at all sure about the necessary addition of potato slices to that particular – and acquired – taste. Bleu d'Auvergne: not the only Made-in-France cheese flavour that Brets do – there's also a Jura cheese one, a camembert one, a bleu pancetta that mixes the mellow-sharp tang of the Auvergne cheese with the salty Italian charcuterie, and a goat's cheese with espelette peppers. Aligot à l'Aveyronnaise: Aligot is an infinitely superior form of cheesy mash – made by mixing mashed potato with butter, garlic, cream and Laguiole cheese. It's unlikely the crisps are quite as stretchy as the mash after which they're flavoured. Aioli: creamy garlic and olive oil sauce Ceps: Yep. Mushroom flavour. On a thin, deep-fried and cooled slice of potato. Chips de Sarrasin à la Forestière: Buckwheat crisps. With mushrooms. Oh, and herbs. They also do a Guerande salt buckwheat crisp. And a curry cream one, too. To be fair, sarrasin is a very Breton ingredient. But curry isn't. Tartiflette: The hearty winter apres-ski coronary in a meal of potatoes, lardons, onions and reblochon cheese in crisp form. Ail confit et herbes de Provence: A sort of gastro-flavour of garlic cooked slowly in oil or fat with the classic combination of Provencal herbs Advertisement Carbonade Flamande: Admittedly, the traditional beef-in-beer classic is a Belgian original – but it's a popular dish in northern France, too, so we're claiming it, just as Brets have to make a crisp flavour. No wonder the online taste tests are so popular. Lists and rankings are astonishingly successful online practice these days. And it's easy to imagine some of these flavours – looking at you, pastis – are created solely to create a social media buzz. It hasn't always been completely successful. One online poll of possible future flavours included an option for 'petrol'. To the surprise of precisely no one, that one never made it into production – its inclusion in the poll was later attributed to an error by 'an intern'.
Local France
02-05-2025
- Politics
- Local France
France's ex-PM calls ‘state of emergency' over children's screen use
The call – from former prime minister and current centrist party leader Gabriel Attal and child psychologist Marcel Rufo – came after French medical experts advised that children under the age of six should not be exposed to screens, including TV, in an open letter to the government . The current recommendation in France is that children under the age of three should not be exposed to screens, and only 'occasional use' between the ages of three and six in the presence of an adult. Meanwhile, children in nearly 200 collèges have been involved in a pilot ban on mobile phones, in which the devices – which should be turned off, anyway – are handed in at the start of the school day and returned at the end of it. Advertisement This ban is set to be rolled out nationwide at the start of the new school year in September. READ ALSO 'Digital pause': France pilots school mobile phone ban The use of "a mobile phone or any other electronic communications terminal equipment" has been banned in nurseries, ecoles primaires (primary schools) and collèges in France since 2018. The experts' open letter and Attal and Rufo's joint declaration, published in Le Figaro, goes further and demands restrictions on screen use outside school hours, and in the home. 'If we do nothing, screens and their content will slowly kill our youth and, ultimately, our entire society,' warn Attal and Rufo, exactly a year after a report produced by experts commissioned by President Emmanuel Macron expressed concern about the consequences of overexposure to screens on children's health and development. The commission also recommended a ban on screen use for children under three and said that mobile phones for children aged from 11 should not have internet access. Attal and Rufo, however, propose creating an 'assessment interview' for screen addiction for children aged 11 as they head into their collège years – and again at age 15, for students going to lycée after completing their brevet exams. They also suggested that age limits on social media sites, similar to those imposed on adult content, could be introduced to prohibit access to social networks by those under 15, while a 'digital curfew' should prevent access to networks between 10pm and 8am for anyone aged between 15 and 18. READ ALSO EXPLAINED: How to get a mobile phone contract in France They added that social network sites should 'go black-and-white' after 30 minutes of use, to reduce their attractiveness, and that access should be restricted to one hour for anyone under the age of 18. Advertisement 'Even China does it with TikTok,' Attal and Rufo argued, 'for once, let's take inspiration from what this country is doing!' And they also suggested that apps and platforms should come with a readily available 'addict-score' rating, inspired by on the Nutri-Score model – and propose that two percent of revenue generated by platforms' activity in France go to funding mental health research and care. A commission of inquiry into the psychological effects of social media site TikTok on minors has been launched in the Assembly.
