Nutri-Score and Cancer Plan: Italy at the center of the debate on food labeling. The deepening of the weekly The Economist
The Treaty of Versailles, signed in 1919, and usually remembered for the humiliating punishments it inflicted on Germany. But leafing through the pages of the agreement that ended the First World War, a lesser known objective of the allied powers appears: the protection of champagne.
Article 275 ensured that French palates would never again have to suffer the infamy of tasting grapes grown in Germany passed off as Gallic bubbles.
Among diplomats and historians, the treaty is not considered one of Europe’s finest moments, given its role in sparking the next world war. The pampered peasants are perhaps the only ones who remember him with the greatest affection.
A century later, food remains the subject of high politics in Europe. This year marks the 60th anniversary of the EU Common Agricultural Policy, which still manages to monopolize a third of the group’s budget. Trade agreements wanted by some member states are routinely canceled to protect the farmers of others (usually France).
Now a new infighting is gripping the continent. The European Commission in Brussels will propose rules this year requiring the nutritional qualities of all foods to be displayed on the front of their packaging. The idea is to inform buyers about what makes them fat. But the measure, supported by nutritionists, and attacked by its opponents as an assault on the European way of life – writes The Economist.
Almost all food sold in Europe has had to disclose its nutritional qualities (or lack thereof) since 2016. But the worry goes no further. The information is located on the back of the package, written in a font size usually reserved for the finer points of insurance contracts.
In 2017, French food scientists developed a system that distilled that hard-to-read data into a simple “Nutri-Score”. A standard label placed where consumers can see it would provide color-coded grades from an acceptable A to a despicable E.
Public health officials and consumer groups praise the simplicity of the Nutri-Score and have pushed for its more use. ample. Supported by authorities in France, Germany and Spain, among others, the system has been adopted voluntarily by many retailers. The Commission thinks that something similar should be mandatory across the EU.
The sensible push to move consumers away from unhealthy food has run into a problem inherent in any regulation designed for 27 countries: what is advocated by most countries ends up raising the barbs of some. In this case the problem is Italy.
The Nutri-Score is not a friend of many products of Italian cuisine. A meal of ham, gorgonzola and tiramisu turns out to be completely on the wrong end of the spectrum. Even olive oil, the elixir at the heart of the country’s famous Mediterranean diet, receives only an amber glow from the classification system.
For Italians, always alert to the possibility that Nordic patrons are holding them to an unreasonable standard, this is provocation enough. How can their food be bad when Italy has some of the lowest adult obesity rates in the rich world
Politics has helped turn the issue into a matter of national pride in Rome. Populists rail against what they call a senseless system cooked by technocrats without taste and soul.
Matteo Salvini of the far-right party, the League, rejects the Nutri-Score as suitable only for joyless acolytes of alcohol-free wine, fake meat and edible insects. Others see a threat to Italian agriculture designed to benefit multinationals.
Mario Draghi, Italian Prime Minister and former head of the European Central Bank, and himself a technocrat. Yet to hold his frail coalition together, he had to make disparaging comments about the Nutri-Score.
A crude lobbying operation, complete with suspicious websites mimicking public health agencies, has popped up in opposition to the Nutri-Score. Contrast the terrible grade given to Parmesan (E) with the passing grade of Coca Cola Zero (B).
How can two-thirds of the products served by the fast food chain KFC not be rated worse than mozzarella
The food classification effort is portrayed as a ploy to undermine traditional agricultural products: it is much easier to change the recipe for Coco Pops (whose formula has recently been modified to get a B) than salami (a dry E).
Proponents of the Nutri-Score note that processed food manufacturers have also lobbied against stricter labeling (though some now support it, such as Kellogg’s, which makes Coco Pops).
Serge Hercberg, an academic who helped devise the scheme, describes it as an obvious health measure. Finding biased comparisons is easy, but foods should be compared to alternatives in the same category: you can’t replace a can of Coke with a cup of olive oil (which, he notes, scores better than butter).
Italy has a childhood obesity problem and the Mediterranean diet it originally advocates included more fruit and vegetables than cured ham producers would like to admit. “Even if the foods are traditional, it doesn’t mean they’re good,” Hercberg said. As for KFC, the parts of its menu that score well – a side dish – are healthy.
The Italian complaint has caught on. Farmers in France and beyond worry that negative scores for their produce can reduce sales. Agriculture ministries have been pressured to reduce the Nutri-Score even where it has already been adopted. The proposal to create a special category for alcohol (a black F) is used to galvanize more opponents.
Italy has developed an alternative labeling scheme so confusing that it seems aimed at making the wholesomeness of a food completely unknowable. And national governments will have plenty of opportunities to hollow out the Commission’s proposals, as they did when the food labeling issue last arose a decade ago.
But they shouldn’t. Net of the noisy disagreement, Nutri-Score fans and detractors are not that far apart. Italians are thin, despite all that pecorino and ice cream, because they know that these pleasures should be enjoyed in moderation. Professor Hercberg and others say more or less the same thing: everything is fine, if you adjust the quantities. Even a glass of Italian wine, perhaps. Health!
(Extract from the foreign press review by eprcomunicazione)
