Will A Warning Label Change What You Buy?

Dear Reader,

In a recent conversation, obstetrician Dr Alka Gupta held up a bag of roasted edamame.

She pointed to the nutrition table on the back:

Protein: 17g
Calories: 120

At first glance, it looks like a fairly healthy snack.

But there was a catch.

“The protein content is good. I would say this is a good product. But what happens when most people see calories as 120, they think, oh this entire pack has 120 calories. But that’s per serving. And there’s 17 servings in this pack. So we’re talking of a 2,000-plus calorie pack,” she said.

Her catch wouldn’t apply to Harpreet, an entrepreneur in his 30s, who taught himself to read nutrition labels after becoming more health-conscious in his late teens. Today, he reads nutrition tables closely, right down to the ingredient list.

But most consumers don't. And even when we know what to look for, we don't always have the time to turn the pack around and work it out.

That is the gap India’s food regulator is now trying to close.

After the Supreme Court pushed it to act, last month, the Food Safety Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) proposed front-of-pack warning labels for packaged foods that are high in at least two nutrients such as added sugar, salt and saturated fat.

Public-health advocate Dr Arun Gupta says the proposal has been a long time coming. He spoke to me about earlier attempts to introduce a star-rating system and the food industry's resistance to stronger warnings.

“They said the industry will be ruined. The ethnic food industry, small and medium enterprises, will be ruined. That it’s people’s choice to eat. We’re just catering to people’s tastes,” he said.

But Dr Gupta argues that consumers don't make these choices in a vacuum.

He says that companies deliberately formulate foods to make them difficult to stop eating, while spending billions on marketing. So, he argues, that demand is not entirely organic.

And even public-health advocates who support warning labels say that FSSAI's current proposal may not go far enough.

Dr Chandrakant Lahariya, a paediatrician and public-health specialist, questions why a product should need to cross the threshold for two nutrients before receiving a warning.

“Even one food item is harmful. So if this is harmful, let's say it's harmful, why wait for making two ingredient harmful before the label is being put?” he said.

So, is a label enough to tackle the health costs of packaged food?

Tune in to the latest episode of The Signal Brief to find out.

You can find The Signal Brief on YouTube, Spotify, and Apple Podcasts.

Thank you once again for listening and supporting us. We’d love to hear from you; write to us at [email protected] or find us on Instagram or X at @thesignaldotco.

Best,
Kudrat
on behalf of The Core

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