Welcome to the forum snap-dentist.
This is a shocker, easily the worst I’ve seen.
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In another thread I gave my recipe for Christmas trifle. It comes with a warning that it is very rich and should be reserved for special occasions. It is made of cake, booze, mangoes, creme patisserie, chocolate ganache, whipped cream and berries. It is scrumptious! Alone I would rate it as 1/2 star, which it gets for no added salt. To avoid weight gain you should run up the stairs of Sydney Tower once for each slice you eat.
It can be made into a meal (for 16) when served with 9.7 kg of dry coleslaw. It would then rate 4 stars. This marketing business isn’t too hard really.
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An article in the The Conversation has shown how bad the system of Health Stars is. It tallies well with what CHOICE have been saying in this area.
Authored by members of the George Institute for Global Health and published on 3 July this year it makes some interesting points including about who was and wasn’t on the Implementation Committee.
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Is it the system or is it how the system is being managed?
I was left with the impression that it is the management of the system we need to change. The principles behind the star ratings are being corrupted by poor management.
The report attributes this to a lack of regulation. The system is not mandatory and management is the responsibility of those with vested interests.
Should food suppliers and manufacturers have control over how their products are health star labelled?
The most important outcomes of reliable food labelling are most important for consumers. It seems so inappropriate, wrong that consumers do not have control. Or is it that the consumer’s representatives have ceded control to parties who have different interests?
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I take the management of the rating system to be an integral part of the system, without good management the whole system fails (or to those playing it it is probably seen as successful). As the article points out those who only represent 29% of the goods using the ratings, were on the implementation committee and the Coles, Woolworths and ALDI supermarkets whose goods were responsible for 56% of goods using the ratings were not represented. Is this skewing leading to the bad outcomes, to me it would seem to point to that. So not just the management of it but the rules that underpin it all are likely linked to the “gaming”.
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While still strictly following the system makers can choose to:
- opt out for foods that would look bad or
- to sell foods that are not healthy but score well by manipulating their presentation.
There is no management applied (or not applied) by authorities in these situations. We do not have these manipulations being reported as breaches of the code because they are not.
The problem is not that vested interests mismanaged the system after the fact it is that they had far too much influence on building the system from the ground up. They carefully arranged it so that no management was required.
There was a recent review but the authorities flubbed it, allowing (for example) rating of any given product to continue to be optional despite strenuous representations to the contrary. It is clear whose system it is, the manufacturers own it and the authorities meekly put their stamp on it.
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I found this one needed a second look.
You do need to look closely to make sure you read it as it is intended. Although most likely know the health star rating anyway. Or do we?
TimTams have health stars! 5? Oops 0.5 They do use a big fat 0 before the 5 just to be sure.
Yes, they also sort of fill in a little bit of the first star bottom left.
Well done Arnotts?
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Hello
I am annoyed that Neslē has still been displaying 4.5 health stars for its Milo cereal which is full of sugar. They try to cover this up saying it’s full of nutrients and minerals and that you should have with fruit and skim milk and water. As if you’d do that! I personally only have full cream milk with my cereal, and I usually have coffee to compliment it. Neslē needs to fix its packaging. Interested as to what others think.
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This practice earned a Choice shonky for Milo when these food ratings first came out.
Nothing new, and nothing done to fix it so far.
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Resurrecting this older topic, most consumers might not focus on what a HSR means in context of grocery shopping. This recent fluff piece explains it.
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Therese O’Sullivan, Professor in Nutrition and Dietetics, confirmed that soy milk should only be compared to other soy milks with this system, not with dairy products, including full cream milk.
“The Heath Star Rating (HSR) is designed for comparison of similar products in the same food category — typically found in the same section of the shop. It only applies to packaged products,” she told Yahoo News Australia.
So if you create a type of dessert Instant Heart Attack that is 60% saturated fat, 30% sugar and 10% salt I can create a competitor that is much healthier, only 45% sat fat, 25% sugar and 8% salt and get 4 stars.
On a different tack, how does the average punter compare the health value of the best full cream and the best soy milk?
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