# Labelling on food in your country **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [February 10, 2007, 11:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/labelling-on-food-in-your-country/391608 "2007-02-10T11:57:21Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 15\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Sri\_Theo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f04885/32.png) [@Sri\_Theo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sri_Theo)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2007, 11:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/labelling-on-food-in-your-country/391608/1 "2007-02-10T11:57:21Z")
Recently in Britain its become mandatory for all packaged food to contain information on Fat, Saturated Fat, salt and sugars- there’s two separate formats- both on [this page](http://www.nutrition.org.uk/home.asp?siteId=43§ionId=1348&parentSection=304&which=) (scroll down for the second type) and I’ve found it pretty useful and have been surprised at what some seemingly healthy foods contain. So I’ve become curious as to what labelling is like in other countries, do you have similar health information on products? More detailed or do you measure other things entirely? I’d also be interested in whether such labelling is mandatory or in a standard format. Would you even find it useful if it was there? Thanks for any info that people can send my way, I checked into the wiki page but I didn’t find it that helpful (I guess its not a subject that interests many people) so any pictures you can point me too will be much appreciated Thanks. ---
**Author:** ![TheLoadedDog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/35a633/32.png) [@TheLoadedDog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TheLoadedDog)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2007, 12:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/labelling-on-food-in-your-country/391608/2 "2007-02-10T12:12:11Z")
Honestly, I lose track. There’s simple ingredients (though, as with most countries, multinational monoliths such as Coca-Cola seem immune), there’s nutritional labels on some things such as breakfast cereal, “Heart Foundation” ticks of approval on some stuff, “Australian made”, “Australian owned”, and various other stuff. Basically, at this stage, ingredients (and nutritional stuff on some things), and country of origin are mandatory. The rest is a dog’s breakfast of voluntary and industry-based schemes. ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2007, 2:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/labelling-on-food-in-your-country/391608/3 "2007-02-10T14:06:27Z")
In Canada, there’s similar mandatory nutritional information. As well, all labelling, not just the nutritional stuff, is bilingual - English and French. ---
**Author:** ![groman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/73ab20/32.png) [@groman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/groman)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2007, 2:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/labelling-on-food-in-your-country/391608/4 "2007-02-10T14:08:49Z")
I’ve seen Russian, American and Japanese coke cans/bottles and all of them have always included all the ingredients. Of course they’re not going to tell you just which “artificial and natural flavorings” they use but that’s about as much information needed for health purposes. Do Australian coke products not list ingredients? ---
**Author:** ![groman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/73ab20/32.png) [@groman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/groman)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2007, 2:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/labelling-on-food-in-your-country/391608/5 "2007-02-10T14:13:26Z")
Err, I guess I could contribute something useful. I don’t read Japanese, but all packaged foods seem to include oodles of useful information. US nutritional labels are standardized to include serving size and calories, fat, saturated fat, sodium, carbohydrates, sugar and protein **per serving**. Possibly other things as well. Russian food labeling included pretty much the above information but per 100g without any serving information. ---
**Author:** ![Phatlewt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/a698b9/32.png) [@Phatlewt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Phatlewt)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2007, 2:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/labelling-on-food-in-your-country/391608/6 "2007-02-10T14:20:10Z")
American food products have a standardized “Nutrition Facts” panel which includes information on calories, fat, saturated fat, protein, carbohydrates (subheadings for sugars and fibers), and overall nutrition on a number of vitamins/minerals. The label generally always is a variation on this: [http://www.fda.gov/opacom/backgrounders/foodlabel/newlabel.html](http://www.fda.gov/opacom/backgrounders/foodlabel/newlabel.html) The format was standardized by the Nutrition Legislation and Enforcement Act (NLEA) of 1990 (in other words, we have been using the same format for the last 17 years). It stipulates a serving size, which is determined by the FDA rather than the company – different from the UK where I think they do per 100g regardless of what a serving would be. This was because food companies had played fast & loose with serving sizes in an attempt to avoid looking unhealthy under the previous labeling scheme. ---
**Author:** ![Paul\_in\_Qatar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ccd318/32.png) [@Paul\_in\_Qatar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Paul_in_Qatar)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2007, 2:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/labelling-on-food-in-your-country/391608/7 "2007-02-10T14:45:46Z")
Around here we have a simple ingredient list in Arabic pasted on the can, box whatever. They carefully place right on top of the cooking instructions. ---
**Author:** ![don\_t\_ask](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e68b1a/32.png) [@don\_t\_ask](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/don_t_ask)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2007, 3:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/labelling-on-food-in-your-country/391608/8 "2007-02-10T15:03:07Z")
[These](http://www.nzfsa.govt.nz/consumers/food-safety-topics/food-processing-labelling/food-labelling/fact-sheets/fs-2003-01-general-labelling.htm) are the Australian and New Zealand standards for labelling. They have been in force for many years. Apart from the nutrional panel the list of contents has to be in order of the percentage contained in the package. I don’t understand why **TLD** feels that some companies don’t adhear or that there is any level of voluntary compliance. Even the most obscure imported foodstuff will have stick on labels, applied by hand, if no information is required in the country of origin. ---
**Author:** ![TheLoadedDog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/35a633/32.png) [@TheLoadedDog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TheLoadedDog)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2007, 3:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/labelling-on-food-in-your-country/391608/9 "2007-02-10T15:26:00Z")
[QUOTE=don’t ask] I don’t understand why **TLD** feels that some companies don’t adhear or that there is any level of voluntary compliance. Even the most obscure imported foodstuff will have stick on labels, applied by hand, if no information is required in the country of origin. [/QUOTE] Sorry, I should have been clearer. I’m talking about the various schemes for local content, etc. The mandatory stuff (ingredients, import co name etc) is fairly well adhered to, yeah. But there have been debates over the last five or ten years with folks like Dick Smith advocating various sorts of labels, none of which ever seem to get off the ground. ---
**Author:** ![Sri\_Theo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f04885/32.png) [@Sri\_Theo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sri_Theo)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2007, 3:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/labelling-on-food-in-your-country/391608/10 "2007-02-10T15:26:06Z")
Good stuff, I guess I expected the list of ingredients to be universal- and it seems that I was right about that- its the nutritional information I find interesting. Does anyone here base their shopping decisions on them, or even read them, some of these systems seem pretty hard to comprehend. Especially if you don’t know your GDA’s and such in the first place. ---
**Author:** ![TheLoadedDog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/35a633/32.png) [@TheLoadedDog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TheLoadedDog)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2007, 3:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/labelling-on-food-in-your-country/391608/11 "2007-02-10T15:48:04Z")
[QUOTE=Sri Theo] Does anyone here base their shopping decisions on them, or even read them, some of these systems seem pretty hard to comprehend. [/QUOTE] No. I’ve always been very leery of the whole deal. Take fruit juice for example: “NO ADDED SUGAR” means it’s laden with preservatives, “NO PRESERVATIVES” means it’s full of sugar (which, ironically is a preservative), and even “100% JUICE” usually means it’s reconstituted. “ABSOLUTELY FUCK-OFF GEE-WHIZZ FRESH JUICE” will tend to mean it’s so expensive you can’t afford it. Similar goes for other products, in my experience. I just buy what I like or what I think is good for me depending on how wholesome I’m feeling at the time, and I use common sense like “carrots=good / cake=bad” rather than fuss over labels (which are likely fudged anyway). ---
**Author:** ![groman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/73ab20/32.png) [@groman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/groman)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2007, 10:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/labelling-on-food-in-your-country/391608/12 "2007-02-10T22:21:05Z")
[QUOTE=TheLoadedDog] Similar goes for other products, in my experience. I just buy what I like or what I think is good for me depending on how wholesome I’m feeling at the time, and I use common sense like “carrots=good / cake=bad” rather than fuss over labels (which are likely fudged anyway). [/QUOTE] I think I have an idea on a new weapon involving you and carrot cake. ---
**Author:** ![susan\_foster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d9b06d/32.png) [@susan\_foster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/susan_foster)\ **Post date:** [February 11, 2007, 2:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/labelling-on-food-in-your-country/391608/13 "2007-02-11T02:11:47Z")
[QUOTE=Sri Theo] Good stuff, I guess I expected the list of ingredients to be universal- and it seems that I was right about that- its the nutritional information I find interesting. Does anyone here base their shopping decisions on them, or even read them, some of these systems seem pretty hard to comprehend. Especially if you don’t know your GDA’s and such in the first place. [/QUOTE] I don’t base it on all the percents. I look for: no hydrogenated/partially-hydrogenated fats (and will look for no palm oil going forward) no high fructose corn syrup calories and fat grams, and exactly what a serving size is high in calcium is a bonus Susan ---
**Author:** ![even\_sven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/dfb087/32.png) [@even\_sven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/even_sven)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2007, 1:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/labelling-on-food-in-your-country/391608/14 "2007-02-12T13:48:27Z")
I believe there are no food packaging requirements here, although it’s hard to tell because they only packaged food actually manufactured in this country are beer, soft drinks, cottonseed oil, yogurt and very low-quality chocolate. I am not kidding. ---
**Author:** ![TheLoadedDog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/35a633/32.png) [@TheLoadedDog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TheLoadedDog)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2007, 1:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/labelling-on-food-in-your-country/391608/15 "2007-02-12T13:56:49Z")
[QUOTE=even sven] I believe there are no food packaging requirements here, although it’s hard to tell because they only packaged food actually manufactured in this country are beer, soft drinks, cottonseed oil, yogurt and very low-quality chocolate. I am not kidding. [/QUOTE] There are plenty of Western nutritionists who, rightly or no, would say that you don’t know how good you’ve got it.