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Beware ‘junk’ labels in disguise

Kirsten Lawson
Kirsten Lawson

With school back, University of Sydney health sciences senior lecturer Kieron Rooney has warned parents to be wary of food products purporting to carry a stamp of approval from the NHSCP.

This is the government’s National Healthy School Canteens Project, where foods are classified with the traffic light system of green (good), amber (chose carefully) or red (not recommended).

But food manufacturers, Rooney warns, are now exploiting the guidelines and you’ll find products in the supermarket claiming “canteen approved” or “meets amber guidelines”.

At his local supermarket he found at least 15 labels claiming a product was lunchbox friendly or “approved”. But there is no approval system nor authority. And the products are not food, but “junk”, he says – mainly processed chips, biscuits and snacks.

But the most troubling aspect of the NHSCP system is that if there was a system of officially assessing foods against the NHSCP guidelines, these products would pass.

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“The NHSCP guidelines allow for a canteen to place a highly nutritious, whole, real food beside a packet of manufactured, processed marketed junk on a counter before a five-year-old child,” he says.

You’ll find his comments at abc.net.au/

Kirsten LawsonKirsten Lawson is news director at The Canberra Times

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