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a nutriscore critique: addendum

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Wouter Groeneveld 2022-09-11 15:33:54 +02:00
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@ -39,12 +39,14 @@ I'd much rather follow Michael Pollan's [In Defense of Food](https://michaelpoll
The problem is that most people don't think (when it comes to food). Nutri-Score isn't going to change that. Perhaps it'll make things even worse: they'll start saying "hey, this is B, and that's C, so I'll go with B, thank you very much!", while in fact the C product has less processed ingredients and perhaps more nutritional value.
To make matters worse, this is yet another label that isn't backed up by scientific studies:
Problem number three is that Nutri-Scores are being abused in the supermarket competition. Since the nutritional tables that dictate positive/negative numbers, which lead up to a score, can be misused to reduce a gram here and add some more junk there, processed food is getting _more_ processed instead of less, just to impress us consumers with a cool looking green label. There are some open investigations against major food chains that have been caught doing this.
To make matters worse (problem number four?)---this is yet another label that isn't backed up by scientific studies:
> Thus far, no study of the application of the effect of the application of a full-coloured Nutri-Score on food labels in a whole supermarket assortment exists, so the efficacy of Nutri-Score in a realistic supermarket setting is unknown.
Problem number four is that Nutri-Scores are being abused in the supermarket competition. Since the nutritional tables that dictate positive/negative numbers, which lead up to a score, can be misused to reduce a gram here and add some more junk there, processed food is getting _more_ processed instead of less, just to impress us consumers with a cool looking green label. There are some open investigations against major food chains that have been caught doing this.
Conducting such a study right now would introduce a lot of bias since supermarkets are throwing discounts into the wager. Are you buying that healthy muesli because of its label or because it's cheaper? Perhaps the nudging effect introduces a shame-effect: who wants to be seen as the person with a cart full of alarmingly reddish D labels? Perhaps that might just do the trick.
If you really want to eat healthy, you'll have to invest time in getting to know your raw ingredients and produce. Where does it come from? How do I combine this with that? Does all that fat in this chocolate really matter? Should I never eat cake with real butter ever again?
However, we're still not fixing the core of the problem: getting people more involved with what they eat. If you really want to eat healthy, you'll have to invest time in getting to know your raw ingredients and produce. Where does it come from? How do I combine this with that? Does all that fat in this chocolate really matter? Should I never eat cake with real butter ever again?
We should perhaps stop buying canned pesto and instead dust off that mortar and pestle. Don't forget to buy that D-labeled olive oil. Just don't use a hundred grams.