Nutri-Score Does Not Penalize Traditional Food Specialties, Survey Finds

A sur­vey of food stuff spe­cialty sam­ples con­ducted by the French con­sumer asso­ci­a­tion, UFC-Que Choisir, discovered Nutri-Rating labels do not penal­ize tra­di­tional prod­ucts with pro­tected sta­tus from the European Union.

The asso­ci­a­tion ana­lyzed 588 food stuff sam­ples derived from 310 tra­di­tional prod­ucts, numerous of which are cer­ti­fied with Guarded Geographical Indication (PGI) or Secured Designation of Origin (PDO) sta­tus from the E.U.

UFC-Que Choisir wrote in a press launch that at minimum two-thirds of all those sam­ples ​“obtained superior grades” from Nutri-Score.

See Also:French Draft Bill to Exclude PDO and PGI Solutions From Nutri-Score

Nutri-Rating grades food items dependent on the con­tents these kinds of as extra fat, sugar, salt and calo­ries in 100 grams or mil­li­liters of the foods. It then prices the meals with a color/letter code embla­zoned on the pack­ages, from the health­i­est ​“Environmentally friendly A” down to the ​“Crimson E.”

In the sur­vey, 62 per­cent of the examined food stuff prod­ucts arrived out with a Nutri-Score quality of A, B or C. Consumption of this sort of foodstuff ​“is often encour­aged because of their supe­rior nutri­tional qual­i­ties,” UFC-Que Choisir wrote.

“There are 121 food prod­ucts clas­si­fied as A and B, with olive oil clas­si­fied as C, which is to be pre­ferred to other sorts of unwanted fat,” they additional.

In the push release, UFC-Que Choisir high­lighted a few exam­ples of renowned spe­cial­ties, ​“tra­di­tional foodstuff which exhibit to be extremely nicely bal­anced, these types of as the Flemish hochepot, the Auvergne hot­pot or the famed Castelnaudary cas­soulet.”

Other exam­ples consist of tra­di­tional meat and cold cuts, fruits and legumes, all receiv­ing the A and B rat­ings. Within just the Nutri-Score C clas­si­fi­ca­tion, olive oils are in the com­pany of prod­ucts this kind of as Alsatian spaet­zle pasta or pars­ley ham from Burgundy.

The rat­ings clearly show that Nutri-Score does not stig­ma­tize nearby spe­cial­ties, accord­ing to the asso­ci­a­tion.

In the release, UFC Que-Choisir empha­sized that foodstuff prod­ucts receiv­ing a D or E from Nutri-Score ​“are not meant to den­i­grate them or pro­hibit their con­sump­tion, but only suggest it is rec­om­mended to con­sume them in mod­er­ate quantities and at rea­son­able fre­quen­cies.”

The asso­ci­a­tion added that D or E‑rated prod­ucts could possibly have their position in a bal­anced diet program.

Nutri-Rating inven­tor Serge Hercberg informed Olive Oil Situations in a July 2020 inter­view that Nutri-Rating rat­ings are intended to demonstrate con­sumers the greatest avail­able alternative of food within just a given food stuff cat­e­gory.

For exam­ple, Nutri-Score con­sid­ers olive oils the ideal decision in the fat cat­e­gory with its C, attribut­ing a D to other fat these as but­ter.

The asso­ci­a­tion’s sur­vey came on the heels of the ongo­ing heated debate involving Nutri-Score’s pro­mot­ers and foodstuff pro­duc­ers which is inten­si­fy­ing as the European Commission’s self-imposed dead­line of December to opt for a European-vast front-of-pack label ways.

Not too long ago, sev­eral pro­duc­ers’ asso­ci­a­tions of legendary European cheeses, includ­ing the French Roquefort PDO or the Italian Parmigiano Reggiano PDO asso­ci­a­tions have voiced their oppo­si­tion to the Nutri-Rating.

They argued the French-born label­ing sys­tem does not con­sider the nutri­tional qual­i­ties of these prod­ucts and does not charge the meals in quan­ti­ties that will likely be con­sumed as a daily serv­ing.

Olive oil asso­ci­a­tions and pro­duc­ers in Spain, Italy and Greece have also argued that Nutri-Score’s quality does not accu­rately por­tray the well being ben­e­fits of cer­tain grades of olive oil by grad­ing them all with a ​“C.”

Like the cheese pro­duc­ers, olive oil pro­duc­ers have also stressed how the 100 mil­li­liters sam­ple esti­mates are not real­is­tic com­pared to the true con­sump­tion.

The oppo­si­tion to Nutri-Score’s pos­si­ble intro­duc­tion in Europe has been grow­ing because the label­ing sys­tem was adopted by sev­eral coun­tries, includ­ing France and Germany.

Italy, lead­ing the oppo­si­tion to Nutri-Rating, has also pre­sented a com­pet­ing label named Nutrinform Battery, which the European Fee is cur­rently eval­u­at­ing alongside with sev­eral other label­ing sys­tems.

According to UFC-Que Choisir, Nutri-Score is the very best device avail­able to let con­sumers to make a quick and educated choice when buy­ing meals prod­ucts.

For that rea­son, the asso­ci­a­tion has con­firmed that the sur­vey results have been sent to the European Commission. The asso­ci­a­tion con­cluded that it ​“warns food man­u­fac­tur­ers of their respon­si­bil­ity in a rear­guard fight to main­tain opac­ity on unbal­anced food items.”