Following Maggi ban, it’s time to move to a simple label for classifying foods
Enough has been written about the Maggi controversy, where government labs found more than permissible lead and MSG. The resultant PR disaster, confusion and a nationwide recall of one of the most popular products in the country is likely to become a case study in business schools.
However, there is something else as important as the controversy about harmful substances. It is that Maggi noodles, or for that matter any instant noodles, are not healthy for you in any case, with or without lead and MSG. It is time we have a new, simplified classification system and scale for junk versus healthy food.
Eating refined starch that is processed, dried and kept for months with the help of chemical preservatives is unlikely to be good for you. The ads may be extremely moving emotionally, the brand ambassador could be highly credible, and the soupy noodles might taste really good. It is still not good for you.
Hence, even with no MSG or lead, Maggi’s tagline of “Taste Bhi, Health Bhi”, was only half correct. Any nutritional expert will tell you eating instant noodles for health is about as funny and implausible as using a cheap deodorant to attract dozens of women.
Of course, the noodles won’t kill you. Our diet today has plenty of other unhealthy things as well. For instance, almost all Indian mithais are unhealthy. As are many of our gravy ‘delicacies’. We give up health benefits of food in favour of cost, convenience or taste.
Such compromises are acceptable to an extent. However, if done in excess they can lead to major health problems such as obesity, heart disease and diabetes.
How does one limit unhealthy food then? The problem comes when junk is marketed as healthy. Our advertising standards for food are extraordinarily lax. Junk food manufacturers not only hide the nature of their food, but also position them as health filled alternatives. Armed with ads of beaming mothers feeding sparkly kids, we have junk marketed as emotional nectar every day.
In other sectors such nonsensical advertising would never be allowed. In financial services there have to be a ton of disclaimers reminding investors of the market risk they take. In cigarettes, we have pictures of blackened lungs on the packs. But packets of potato chips don’t bear the picture of an obese heart patient, right?
Food — be it for nourishment or pleasure — has positive associations for us. Any food is good and the kind of food doesn’t seem to matter. Perhaps this comes from a time when India was poorer and food was scarce. When we worked 12 hours a day in the fields and could eat and burn as many calories as we wanted. This was also when processed food from big corporations didn’t exist.
However, times have changed. Physical labour is reducing and we don’t burn off calories as easily. Hence, we need to monitor our food intake carefully. If a big part of our diet has to come from packaged food, we need to understand and label it accordingly.
Of course, nutritional values are provided for most packaged food products today. However, to the average person it is a jumble of tiny font text and numbers. Even if you were to read the data, what would you make of it? Is it healthy food or junk food? Or is it healthy but only in moderation?
Hence, we need a simple label for our food, comprehensible at a quick glance. This should be akin to the green and red dot for vegetarian and non-vegetarian food which has worked well.
We need a new junk-healthy scale classification for all foods. One example, purely for illustration, is to use four tiny dots, in red or green based on the junk-healthy scale.
A red colour for all four dots would mean it is completely junk food. Chips, aerated drinks and fried snacks would belong here. Three red dots and one green would mean it is mostly junk, but perhaps not as high in fat, such as instant noodles or juices made from concentrate with added sugar.
Foods that are healthy in small amounts, such as high calorie nuts, would have two red and two green dots each. Mostly healthy but still processed foods, such as skim milk packs and low sugar juices would earn one red and three green dots. Four green dots would be reserved only for fresh, healthy and unprocessed foods such as fresh vegetables, low calorie fruits and low fat meats.
Only foods with three green dots or more can advertise themselves as healthy. While this labelling will obviously not answer every nutritional question, it will at least tell consumers what kind of food they are eating.
The above four-dot template is just an example. However, junk versus healthy labelling is essential and implementable. This will increase awareness about what we are eating, and over time incentivise us as well as manufacturers to move towards healthier foods.
A healthy society leads to lower healthcare costs, improved productivity at work and a better quality of life for citizens. Food is a big part of public health. About time we knew what we are putting in our mouths.
June 13, 2015 ()