The front food labeling law is already seen on shelves across the country – although not yet 100%. There may be shortages of some products, but something that is not missing today are the warning seals in almost everything.
Yes, even in several products that were previously sold as healthy and that were recommended in any diet.
With these black octagons, now the Ministry of Health warns when a product has "excess sugars", "excess sodium", "excess saturated fats", "excess total fats" and / or "excess calories". All this in relation to parameters of the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO).
But what are critical nutrients? They are the fats, sugars and sodium that are added to foods during their elaboration process. And how does that threshold of what is or is not in excess work?
The black stamps hit supermarket shelves in April. Photo Marcelo Carroll
There is the controversy that fails to close the crack on this colorful rule.
It was the focus of the debate while it was decided in the text of the law whether to choose the method of warning octagons or opt for a nutritional traffic light that went from green to red according to the indication of what is healthy.
That already seems like a flash, something too technical in front of ultra-labeled shelves, but it is not extinct at all.
Black stamps: the system that benefits some foods less healthy than others
A sector of the community of nutritionists now speaks directly on social networks of a kind of "trap" of the black stamps that, by the rod of calories, favors less healthy foods and harms those that are not.
Although from that wing they celebrate the law, what do they point out as the main error? The chosen Nutrient Profile System (SPN). The tool that was established to determine the maximum values above which products must have a seal on the front of the packaging.
In Argentina, the black octagon system was chosen over the nutritional traffic light system used in other countries.
The SPN is the one proposed by PAHO, as stated at the beginning, and let's say it is like an "international standard" for recommendations to countries before they label.
"This system is the one that has the best concordance with the recommendations of the Dietary Guidelines for the Argentine Population (GAPA); that by Resolution 693/2019 is the standard to establish food policies, "they repeated tirelessly from Health.
But the questions do not end with the law implemented.
Many black stamps and many doubts
"My cell phone explodes with doubts about the seal of 'excess sodium' (as in cheeses). Whether or not a product has that seal will depend on the calories provided by that food. Because the law calculates a ratio, it considers the amount of sodium in 100 grams (g) of product and divides that by the calories in those 100g. If the result is greater than 1, the stamp corresponds. Therefore, foods that have more calories do not have the seal of excess sodium and those that have low calories do, "explains Virginia Busnelli medical specialist in Nutrition with orientation in Obesity.
The "excess sodium" seal raises many questions among consumers.
For example, many yogurts now carry one or two stamps: for sugars and fats in the case of whole, and for sodium and sweeteners in low-fat ones. The same amount that can be seen in a soda with sugar.
Also cream cheese, until port salut, now usually has 3 or 4 stamps (for sodium, total fats, saturated fats and calories). As many black stamps as those carried by an alfajor dipped in chocolate.
On this point of calories, Sergio Britos explains that we should not generalize.
Port salut cheeses have the same amount of black stamps as chocolate-dipped alfajores.
"The correct thing is to say that the fact of being based on calories (that is the denominator) tends – with this he emphasizes that it is not the rule – that foods with few kilocalories (kcal) end up having lower thresholds (which makes it easier for them to have in a stamp), while the more kcal they have, higher the threshold for them to have a seal."
What is that threshold, for example, with the "excess in sugars" stamp? 10% of calories. Example: sugars should provide less than 10% of the energy intake, regardless of the amount taken.
"If a food has 80 kcal (very little), with 2g of sugar it already reaches 10%, then 2.1g would be an excess of sugar, whereas if a food has more than 400 kcal (such as a sweet cookie with low sugar or peanut paste, the sugar threshold would be 10g, then, if the product has 9.9g it would not have seals. Ergo: for labeling 2.1 is a lot and 9.9 is little, "says Britos.
A chocolate alfajor and chocolate cookies with four black stamps.
At the same time, it clarifies that the opposite happens. That there are products with low calories and very little fat, saturated or sugar, which fit a seal.
Emilia Raimondo, who is a professor at the National University of Cuyo, a specialist in Food Sciences and who is calculating what seals the manufacturing SMEs will have in Mendoza, agrees that the black octagons are "triggered" in products with low caloric level, by the chosen threshold.
He says that "not all the law is bad, it does have these things" and that is why they plan from that province to train nutritionists on recommendations according to labeling.
To general consumers, he remarks, to understand more thoroughly why a product that could be dietary has a seal, "they will have no choice but to see the ingredients provided by that food (the table), to have an idea of what they should consume or not, because, if not, the seals will be misleading. "
Sugars must provide less than 10% of the energy intake so as not to have a black seal for "excess sugars". Photo Marcelo Carroll
From the other extreme, for Victoria Tiscornia, nutritionist and researcher at the Inter-American Heart Foundation (FIC), "it is not true that the law favors less healthy foods."
"Whether a food has more or fewer calories does not define whether it is a healthy product or not. What the PAHO nutrient profile seeks is to communicate whether calories come from these critical nutrients. A food can be low in calories, but only provide sugar, for example, soft drinks. While a food can be high in calories by providing healthy fats such as a mix of nuts, "he says.
In most of the front labeling of the countries that apply them, the unit of measurement is 100g (as in Uruguay). In some it is the portion itself and only two countries in the world use the PAHO profile: Mexico and Argentina.
Non-alcoholic beverages also display front labeling based on their nutritional composition. Photo Marcelo Carroll
Why do nutrient profile limits here take calories and not serving size or grams of the product as a basis?
According to Tiscornia, because it allows to identify the products that, regardless of the size of the portion consumed, tend to unbalance the diet.
On sugar, he translates it like this: "A sugary drink may have few calories, but it provides energy only in the form of sugars, that is, 100% of the energy comes from sugars. Therefore, it exceeds the limit of 20% established by law (considering the percentage of the first stage of graduality. After that the limit shall be 10%).".
Assorted cookies with logos on the packaging. Photo Marcelo Carroll
In the case of the sodium threshold, he says that since this nutrient does not provide calories per se, it has a limit that is per calorie and also another complementary limit that is per 100 grams. "Precisely to prevent products with many calories from having seals. 1mg/kcal or 300 mg/100g and in non-calorie-free drinks, 40mg/100ml".
Returning to the shelf, another point of confusion surrounds the "Excess in calories" stamp. This is explained by nutritionist Laura Romano on Instagram, where she has more than 1 million followers.
"For this seal to be applied, the product must have more than 275 calories per 100 grams (attention: do not think about the portion that comes in that container, which may be less, but every 100g). And that seal only applies if the food also contains another critical nutrient. If it applies in calories (exceeds the threshold) but also has excess in sugars, fats or saturated fats. If not, no," he says.
That's why Romano says that "you don't have to go crazy" with this octagon. "Almost all solid foods are going to have it, for its more than 275 calories per 100g."
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A shared publication by Laura Romano (@integralnutricion)
The famous peanut nougat – which now innovated with its chocolate flavor – is one of those foods that was previously considered low in calories and in reality is not. It has two black stamps: "excess sugars" and "excess calories." The first octagon determined the presence of the second. Green spreadable cheese (which was previously explicitly sold as light) today has three seals: for fat, saturated fat and sodium. It doesn't have the calorie.
What you don't see from such a "visual" law
The Healthy Eating Promotion Act – which all of us simply call "Front Labeling" – is at the moment more visual than anything else.
Why?
Because it fulfills the objective of providing more information about the food we consume, and also with promoting the improvement of the quality of all foods (it is aimed at brands reformulating products to avoid stamps), but the part, perhaps, more substantial: food education is missing. Educate the population on how to eat better. You know, with these stamps, what should not be chosen, or chosen less. But does the law on the gondola "teach" what to choose more?
"It is key to have tools that help you choose what is best for you and your family," explained the Ministry of Health of the Nation in a video that was uploaded to YouTube as soon as the law was approved. But those tools still do not appear when we are pushing the changuito.
In fact, PAHO, which defends front labeling against the nutritional traffic light method, "because there is good scientific evidence that it is more effective and requires less cognitive effort and less time processing information," clarifies that stamps alone do not work: "They must be part of a set of complementary policies supported by a comprehensive public education program."
MG
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