Clearer food warning labels will enable healthier eating habits

Decrypting the meaning of nutritional information on food packaging might soon get easier, if proposed regulations are adopted. Unfortunately, a healthy diet depends on more than labelling. By Zano Kunene

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‘Ti sort of hidden.” That’s how Elvina Moodley (30) describes the nutritional labels — mostly on the back ~ of packaged food products stacked on grocery store shelves. “When you're there, you're already in a rush and don't have the time to look at the small print on the back to see how much sugar or salt is in an item.”

Moodley, like many South Africans, says she’s never really understood how nutritional tables — the per-serving amounts of calories, glycaemic carbohydrates (carbohydrates the body digests and uses for energy), protein, fat and sodium (salt) — translate into what is healthy, or unhealthy, food.

But big, bold triangle warning labels on the front of packages could mean making healthy choices will be a lot easier.

South Africa’s draft food labelling regulations, which are under review at the Department of Health, would require packaged foods high in sugar, salt, saturated fat (often from animal fat or plant oils), or any amount of artificial sweetener to carry warnings for consumers. They would work, says Edzani Mphaphuli, executive director of the childhood nutrition nonprofit Grow Great, in a similar way to warnings on cigarette packs.

“You might not know why smoking causes cancer, but when you see the label, you start to think, okay, this might not be good for me,” Mphaphuli says.

“But many people don’t know that growing evidence links high added sugar consumption to cancer risk. We just think about it as I'm big, and it ends there. There isn't a clear link that is made around [obesity and being overweight] and hypertension [high blood pressure] and diabetes, and all the other chronic diseases.”

Why labels are hard to read

Many familiar foods — from noodles and breakfast cereals to baby food — are considered to be ultra-processed. It’s because of how they are made, using ingredients one wouldn't normally find in a kitchen, such as artificial colours or preservatives.