Classifying foods

[tofutofu]

has anyone heard of the colour system --> http://www.eatwell.gov.uk/foodlabels...hts/#cat334837

Its like foods labelled

green = healty food
orange = medium
red = bad food


I just wondered if you had any thoughts on it...

Do you think having such a rigid system of classifying foods would cause complications?!

[Tigerlily]

Red foods bad? Tomatoes, apples, radishes, red bell peppers, chilli peppers, pomengranate, beets, cherries, strawberries, raspberries, etc....All unhealthy?

[cedarblue]

perhaps if you weren't up on what foods are healthy or not they might be useful but i pretty much know whats good and whats not (not all of it obviously) and dont buy any ready meals so i cant say i would really pay much attention to it.

it you can buy wholefoods, fruit & veg, the usual legumes, grains, beans, make your own cakes, you cant go far wrong.

although of course being vegan doesnt always follow that its a healthy vegan diet..

[tofutofu]

i agree - buying wholefoods, fruit & veg, legumes, grains, beans and ta dah...healthy. but for non-vegans..not many are aware of what is healthy or not. It just seems to rigid though - there being just 3 catorgies. i mean, everyone has different requirements. . also they dont take into consideration & by fat of the foods.. by the way i don't think its literally red food is bad.they just label the food with a red circle if its bad... they do it in waitrose now..

[sugarmouse]

common sense to me is all that but I guess it will help folk.
Also, I dont think bad and good food is a good way to label. diets should be varied and a healthy attitude toward food is important.

[Risker]

I think it's all trying to come up with simple ideas that the majority of the population feel they can adopt without too much effort.

E.G. 5 Fruit & Veg a day, I don't think that 5 is some magic number but the idea is to get people eating more fruit & veg and by giving people an easy target it makes it easy for people to try and do it, rather than giving them a list of RDA's which they will just ignore because they'll find it too complicated and inconvenient.

[DancingWillow]

that link didn't work for me, tofutofu.

it does sound too simplistic to me and i agree with what others have said.

i guess if green refers to all fruits and veggies and red refers to red meat, it might make some sense. but i don't get the orange

[Seaside]

I think its an excellent idea when applied to manufactured food products. I don't know the labelling laws outside the USA, but here, the ingredient list on a package must list the ingredients in the order of the greatest quantity first. For example, if a breakfast cereal is made of more sugar than any other ingredient, food manufacturers get around this by breaking down the sugar into five or six different types, so they can then list flour as the number one ingredient. They know moms don't want to buy breakfast cereals that are mostly sugar for their kids, and they figure most people won't realize that dextrose, glucose, maltose, invert sugar, corn syrup, etc. are all sugar, so they fool people into thinking there isn't as much sugar in the cereal as there is flour. If they had to have a red mark on the package because there is more sugar in the cereal than any other ingredient, they wouldn't be able to fool people. The people who make MSG have half a dozen different names for MSG in order to fool people too. A simple labelling system like this would be helpful to folks who don't want to keep up with the constant renaming of undesirable ingredients.

The link didn't work for me either. I am assuming this is a colored labelling system for manufactured foods, not natural whole foods of different colors. Sticking to as natural and unprocessed a diet as possible is the best.

[howdawg]

The only problem is they would still most likely label dairy green..?

[DancingWillow]

The only problem is they would still most likely label dairy green..?

of course! it's necessary for calcium you can be sure that those labels will be largely determined by the big industries if they actually do go through with this labeling plan. i wouldn't be surprised if some meats are labeled green too

[Risker]

This should be the link - http://www.eatwell.gov.uk/foodlabels/trafficlights/