Food Labelling Explained – What the Different Labels on Food and Drink Actually Mean
There are many mysterious about some of the packaged products we’re eating. So to uncover those mysteries OPH Good Housekeeping and Homemaking brings you food labelling explained. Within this article I will attempt to tackles one of the biggest gripes consumers have when shopping, which is unclear or inconsistent content of food labels. Name / Description - One of the biggest complaints customers have is in regards to products with misleading descriptions. For example some food or drink items may say ‘strawberry flavour’ and because of the wording that particular product – by law- doesn’t have to contain that ingredient. Therefore quite often or not, say ‘strawberry flavoured’ milkshake, does’nt have to contain real strawberries whatsoever. Nutritional Statements - in the past food labels were not necessarily required to provide nutritional information, to back up claims that the food itself was low in fat, sugar, salt etc or would be able to, say, help the consume reduce their cholesterol level, but luckily for the modern day consumer the law stipulates that sweeping statement have to be backed up. However, the change in law doesn’t necessarily mean that the consumer will know the real meaning behind the nutritional message, so in order to make thinks clear food labelling explained, does just that in the table below. Ingredients - When you read a food label you’ll see that the ingredients contained within the product are listed in order of weight, along with the percentage quantities of each main ingredient too. For example the lime cordial I purchase from my local supermarket, states that it contains real limes, so here the label has to show what percentage of the drink actually contains limes, which is 20%, if you were wondering. ☺ Labels now have to state whether or not there is a likelihood that they contain ingredients such as gluten or nuts. In addition, ingredients do not have to be listed if they make up part of another ingredient that accounts of 25% of the final product. Sometimes manufacturers will use technical or alternated names for an ingredient, so not to draw negative attention to it. For example using the name sodium instead of salt, and more controversially sugar, being described as fructose, sucrose or dextrose. That latter marketing ploy, is cleverly done so the total sugar content within a product is more difficult to calculate. Modern day legislation now stipulates that food labels must convey to the consumer the various ingredients it contains, as well as levels of energy, fat, protein, carbohydrates, sugar, fiber, saturates and sodium, as well as added nutrients and a selection of vitamins and minerals. For some all this is sometimes seen as a blur of information, therefore if you fall into this category or just want to brush up on what you already now the following Food Lablelling Explained table will be sure to help you out.
Thanks for reading my article on Food Labelling Explained. I hope you found it useful.
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