On September 24, the Carrefour group announced the implementation, starting in December, of a new nutritional logo on the packaging of its brand’s products: “This information tells you how often to consume your products: those that you can consume several times a day and those that it is preferable to consume from time to time. Practical information, for a choice at a glance. No more complicated calculations and make way for fun! “
This announcement brought out of their hinges the nutrition specialists and health professionals who signed a column in the International Journal of Medicine and launched a petition for parliamentarians “to vote the principle of a single simplified nutritional labeling, such as ‘it appears in the draft Public Health Law “and for the Carrefour group” to renounce the establishment of its scientifically unacceptable system “.
Confusing prescriptions
Scientists accuse the distribution giant of misleading the proposal for the 5-color system by notably removing the color red. “No argument justifies this withdrawal, on the contrary the epidemiological and experimental economics work underline the interest and the absence of guilt of the red dot on a logo (used or recommended in
other European countries). In addition, Carrefour’s logos are accompanied by prescriptive messages “once a day”, “from time to time” … which scientists consider “scientifically indefensible”.
It is true that writing “once a day” on pizza wrap or “twice a day” on a sweet dessert can be confusing.
Prioritize foods from green to red
The petition circulating on the internet is addressed to parliamentarians, who are expected to study the food labeling bill this week. “France, like many industrialized countries, is facing an epidemic of overweight, obesity and chronic diseases (cancer, diabetes, cardiovascular diseases) for which nutritional factors are important determinants. Public policies must seek to improve not only the individual determinants of eating behavior and the practice of physical activity, but also consumer information on nutritional quality. I ask the government to put in place a simple and understandable nutritional quality information system. on the front of food packaging “.
Concretely, this involves affixing a nutritional color code, from green to red, on the packaging of food. If it is green, it is a product of good nutritional quality, if it is red, it is of poor nutritional quality (too fatty and / or too sweet, etc.).