Food labels 'hoodwink' shoppers

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The public may be being misled about salt content by unrealistic "per serving" information, regulators say.

A study of 831 products by UK local authorities found salt had fallen by nearly 11% on average since 2005.

But councils warned customers may be "hoodwinked" by labels which give details for portions smaller than those which are realistically eaten.

Industry officials said the UK had some of the most "open and honest" labelling in Europe.

Tests carried out on behalf of the Local Authorities Coordinators of Regulatory Services (Lacors) found packets of chicken nuggets describing 15g - or one sole nugget - as a serving and giving nutritional details accordingly.

"It would make it much easier for the consumer to make informed choices if the information was presented in a meaningful way," said Geoffrey Theobald, chairman of Lacors.

"The 'salt per serving' unit should be a realistic quantity and not one that provides a false sense of security to people buying the product."

Far from hoodwinking, we are introducing some of the most open and honest labelling in Europe Food and Drink Federation spokesperson

While welcoming the reduction in salt, Lacors said more still needed to be done.

The Food Standards Agency (FSA) has set individual voluntary targets for a vast range of food products to be met by 2010.

Many are well on their way to meeting these - categories including meat pies, sausages and biscuits performed particularly well.

But many varieties of bread, breakfast cereals and baked beans had yet to make significant headway.

All in all, less than half of the foods tested had achieved the FSA targets, limits which were in any case criticised at the time by some health campaigners as "too soft".

The other key finding of the study was the very high levels of salt found in some noodle-based snacks, more than one in five of which contained two-thirds of the recommended daily intake.

Heart attacks

This problem was compounded by what researchers saw as a difficulty in working out how much salt 100g contained, as this varied depending on how much water had been used to make the product.

The Food and Drink Federation rejected the idea that shoppers were being misled.

"Far from hoodwinking, we are introducing some of the most open and honest labelling in Europe," a spokesperson said.

"Not only do we clearly declare salt levels on the back of pack, many manufacturers are also putting this information on the front of pack as part of the Guideline Daily Allowance labelling scheme."

The government recommends that adults should eat no more than 6g of salt a day. However, the average intake of salt is between 9g and 10g a day, although this is falling.

Some experts estimate that if average consumption was cut to 6g a day it would prevent 70,000 heart attacks and strokes a year.

But not all scientists sign up to those estimates, and some suggest salt does not play a significant role in those conditions.