Suggestions that consideration be given to a plain packaging formula for high calorie foods, similar to that adopted last year in Australia for tobacco products, have been slapped down by food experts attending the Australian Institute of Food Science Technology (AIFST) convention in Brisbane last week.
The issue was one of the key topics at a special panel of food experts at the convention. It followed suggestions in recent months that plain packaging of high calorie foods could be a possible solution to the country’s obesity epidemic.
The idea found no backers at the convention, however.
The panel instead agreed that plain packaging was inappropriate and likely to be ineffective.
Panel members instead suggested a range of other methods to tackle obesity.
Local authority on native Australian foods and winner of the 2013 AIFST Food industry Innovation Award, Vic Cherikoff, suggested food manufacturers should rather do more to increase the nutrient quality of common foods.
“Traditional hunter gatherer diets were driven by cravings and needs. We may be in an age of supermarket foraging but we still have biological needs for certain macro and micro-nutrients, including antioxidants,” he told the convention.
“When we are eating high calorie, low nutrient foods, there may be a risk that we are overeating in an attempt to meet our nutritional needs.
“We need to look at maximising nutrient content of foods – both processed and those at the farm gate – to meet our needs and reduce the risk of overeating.“
The chair of the Federal Department of Industry, Innovation and Climate Change's Innovation Precinct, Peter Schutz, also called for more variety in consumers' diets.
“We need to both develop and encourage people to eat a greater variety of foods. Eighty percent of the calories we consume come from just eight cereals, sugar and four tubers. We can do better,” he said.
The recent decision by the country's health ministers to back a star rating system for food nutritional labelling was also cited as a worthy initiative to improve healthier eating habits.
“The new star front of pack labelling system is a great example of an initiative that will motivate the industry to develop innovative solutions for high quality, nutritious food products,” the chief executive of research and development company BioInnovations, Vijay Rajendram, said.
Other experts spoke on the importance of better food education.
“Despite the rise of the celebrity chef, we are seeing a de-skilling in cooking. It’s led to a general disconnect with food, poor knowledge of what’s in a dish and the amount we should be eating. We desperately need to improve food education,” said dietitian Professor Sandra Capra, of the University of Queensland.
The AIFST is the leading not-for-profit independent organisation for food professionals in Australia and is concerned with all aspects of food science and technology.
Despite the country's fascination with celebrity cooking, food experts say Australians are knowledge-poor about food health issues. Plain packaging of food was not the answer, they said.
