Not all fat is the same. Whether it's good or bad for your health, it depends on the type of fat. For example, experts evaluate the unsaturated fatty acids found in vegetable fats higher in quality than the saturated fatty acids contained in animal fats. Therefore, unsaturated fatty acids should be consumed, but saturated fatty acids should be reduced. CodeCheck always shows whether the fat content of a product is in a low, medium or high range, as well as how high the proportion of saturated fatty acids is. The values are based on the information provided by the British Food Standards Agency, and relate to 100 grams or 100 milliliters of the product.
Sugar appears under different names in the ingredients: sucrose, glucose, dextrose, fruit sugar, fructose, invert sugar, glucose syrup, maltodextrin or honey. Sometimes the sugar even "hides" in the carbohydrates. Experts recommend taking no more than 10 percent of your daily requirement in the form of sugar - that's 50 grams of sugar a day for women and 65 grams of sugar for men. The WHO even recommends that an adult eats a maximum of six teaspoons of sugar per day. If a product contains an above-average amount of sugar, at CodeCheck the term sugar is highlighted in red and labeled "high". Accordingly, the colors orange and green are used synonymously with the terms "medium" and "low". The values are based on the specifications of the FSА and relate to 100 grams or 100 milliliters of the product.
Table salt is vital. An adult should consume around two grams a day. According to the German Nutrition Society (DGE), however, it should not be more than six grams, because too much salt is unhealthy. Even so, most people eat too much of it. CodeCheck gives you a quick look at whether the salt content of a product is in a low, medium or high range. The values are based on the information provided by the FSА and relate to 100 grams or 100 milliliters of the product.
Since December 2016, the EU Regulation requires the vast majority of pre-packed foods to bear a nutrition declaration. It must provide the energy value and the amounts of fat, saturates, carbohydrate, sugars, protein and salt of the food. Instead of the salt specification, one sometimes finds the sodium value; to get the salinity, it has to be multiplied by 2.5.
In addition to the mandatory food information, other food information can be provided on a voluntary basis. This includes possible and unintentional presence of allergenic substances, suitability of a food for vegetarians or vegans or information on the presence of gluten.
A label that is already printed on many food packages is the Guideline Daily Amounts, which was developed by the eleven largest food companies (Nestle, Coca Cola, Unilever, Danone, Kelloggs, etc.). The GDA declares what percentage of the daily requirement of the nutrient is covered by the product, leaving us confused by a multitude of values. The measures between the products are difficult to compare, as the nutrients are given for a "portion" instead of 100 grams of the food as the "traffic light" offers. This is apart from the fact that the specified portion sizes are sometimes not realistic. For example, the GDA recommends a “portion” of potato chips, a guideline value of 25 grams, which corresponds to around 12 chips. The traffic light informs you faster and tends to lead the food industry to revise product recipes from a nutritional point of view, in order to go from red to yellow or even to green. That is why health and consumer protection organizations as well as CodeCheck are campaigning for simple traffic light labeling on packaging such as the Nutri Score or the FSA traffic light.
