Boost your understanding of Health Star Ratings

Jenny Reid, Manager for Food Science and Risk Assessment at the Ministry for Primary Industries.

There has been a fair amount of debate recently on the use of the Government’s voluntary Health Star Rating system for packaged foods, and I’d like to take the opportunity to clear up a few misconceptions.

The Ministry for Primary Industries has been involved with the implementation of the Health Star Ratings in New Zealand along with the Ministry of Health.

When we first looked at a front-of-pack labelling system to help kiwis make healthier food choices, we considered a number of options. The key thing was that we wanted something that was consistent with the Ministry of Health’s eating and activity guidelines, which focused on encouraging New Zealand to eat healthy, balanced diets.

While most people already understand that unpackaged foods, such as fruit and veggies, are good for you, it can be a lot harder for people to understand the nutritional value of packaged foods.

Out of all the options, Health Stars was the best way to help people quickly and easily make healthy decisions about packaged foods. The system looks at the overall nutrition of a packaged food and balances the ‘good’ and ‘bad’ nutrients and ingredients against each other, instead of just focusing on one ingredient, such as sugar.

It’s important to note that Health Stars are not intended to be used to compare all foods. Instead it is meant to be used when comparing similar foods in the same category, e.g. when comparing one type of breakfast cereal with another.

The system uses ratings of ½ to 5 stars to measure the overall nutritional content and healthiness of packaged foods so consumers can quickly compare similar types of packaged foods to make better informed healthier choices.

The number of stars is calculated based on the energy, saturated fat, salt and sugar, as well as fibre, protein, fruit, vegetable, nut and legume content of packaged foods.

The best advice from health experts has always been the value of moderation. Being healthy is not about focusing on one ingredient and eliminating that from our diets – we want to encourage people to eat a balanced diet and this includes a range of nutrients and foods.

To this end, foods higher in energy, saturated fat, sugar and salt, and lower in fibre or other ‘good’ nutrients, receive fewer stars than those with a better overall nutrient profile.

The Health Star Ratings were never intended to be the only solution to helping consumers eat healthily. Instead, it is only one tool in a suite of tools that can help with healthy eating choices and it is not intended to be used in isolation from other dietary advice.

We recommend consumers also pay attention to further information provided on the Nutrition Information Panel, for example portion sizes, and advice on diet and exercise from the Ministry of Health. For information about a healthy and balanced diet, visit the Health Ed website - https://www.healthed.govt.nz/

Since its introduction, we have seen an increasing number of manufacturers starting to use Health Stars on their products. Both of New Zealand’s main supermarket retailers have also committed to taking up the Health Star Rating system across their home brand products and these are starting to appear on shelves. The Health Star Rating system has also encouraged a number of manufacturers to reformulate their product in order to provide healthier options for their consumers.

In addition, as with all new systems, the Government has a planned review of Health Star Ratings after two years of implementation. We will be starting the review later on this year and this will focus on a range of things including companies’ use of the system and consumer awareness and understanding of the system. This will involve a consumer survey on Health Star Ratings in November. All feedback gathered in the review will help us to improve the system’s usefulness.

FSANZ call for submissions on mandatory labelling of lupin

Food Standards Australia New Zealand (FSANZ) has called for submissions on a proposal to require the mandatory declaration of lupin as an allergen.

FSANZ is proposing to add lupin to a list of allergens that must be declared, either on labels or via information accompanying or displayed with the food, if they are present.

Like some other legumes (e.g. soy and peanut), lupin has the potential to be an allergen. Historically, most of the Australian sweet lupin crop has been used for animal feed or exported. However, because of its high protein and fibre content, it is increasingly being used in food for people. Due to the increase in use in food and some cases of allergic response, FSANZ was asked to investigate whether lupin should be one of the allergens that require mandatory declaration.”

The closing date for submissions is 6pm AEST Thursday 28 July 2016.

More information

Proposal P1026 – Lupin as an allergen

Current allergen labelling requirements

NEW ZEALAND INNOVATION AWARDS

Now open for entries

The New Zealand Innovation Awards (NZIA) have helped many organisations across a variety of industry sectors get connected to a wide range of partners, multinational organisations and private investors searching for great Kiwi companies to work with and invest in.

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Entries for the NZ Innovation Awards are open from

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www.innovationawards.org.nz