Pricewatch: Misleading food labels

In today’s Pricewatch, Paul Cullen explores the topic of misleading food labels. It’s a really useful, comprehensive article for anyone who’s ever picked up a shopping basket, with information on everything from environmental claims to the difficulty of tracing the origin of chicken and the use of meaningless terms such as “traditional” or “country-style.”

There’s plenty worth reading here, but I’ll just highlight one rather astonishing relevation that Cullen brings to light:

In breads, wholegrain is another largely meaningless term. Many products market themselves by describing how they are made with whole grains, and use dark brown colours or deceptive names to show the product is associated with the health benefits of whole grains.

Sadly, many of these items have ordinary refined wheat flour as their main ingredient. One Irish survey found over half the wholegrain breads examined contained more white flour than wholemeal flour.

If you are looking for a healthier option when shopping for bread, look for wholemeal products, which must contain wholemeal flour.

So there you have it. You can read the full article here.

Readers, what annoys you about misleading food lables?