Doughnuts Join List of Nutritious Food

Companies will be able to claim custard tarts, sausage rolls and even doughnuts are healthy foods under a European crackdown on junkfood advertising, campaigners complained yesterday.

All three fatty foods would pass proposed European Commission thresholds for products which can be marketed as healthy or nutritious, according to Cancer Research, the National Heart Foundation and Which?. They demanded the Health Secretary Alan Milburn oppose the crackdown, which they warned would weaken the fight against obesity.

When the Health Claims Regulation was passed three years ago, the EC said: "Only products offering genuine health or nutritional benefits will be allowed to refer to them on their labels." However the new definitions of unhealthy food announced by Brussels were far weaker than the nutrient profiling model developed by the Food Standards Agency. All of the EC’s thresholds for categories such as biscuits, meat-based products and breakfast cereals would be given amber or red signs under the FSA’s traffic light labelling scheme.

Which? blamed EU states protecting such traditional food as salty German bread for diluting the legislation.

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April 25, 2009