Nobody doubts that food labelling is a complicated thing. In one of the later initiatives, the food industry makes an attempt to identify nutritional contents of food products and percentages thereof with respect to the Guideline Daily Amount or GDA. What probably started out as a real step towards educating consumers to eat better, has turned into a smokescreen activity of the food industry argues the "Stop GDA" initiative. In a video and on their web site they bring forward 10 arguments why the labelling should be dropped altogether in favour of other alternatives. While perhaps the industry is not as malevolent as the initiative insinuates, it clearly is worried about negative effects on their business. Who would buy a soft drink that contains 120% of the recommended daily intake of sugar?

Well, should you produce such a food is the counterquestion. Now the truth is of course that nobody expects soda, potato crips and similar foods to be healthy -- but they are happily consumed anyway. Would people just stop reading the warning signals, just as smokers seem to ignore health warnings? Is the Stop GDA initiative an overreaction or is the food industry trying to lull us into the consumption of unhealthy food?

Drop your comments!