Accuracy of labelled nutrition declaration among cereal products

Abstract publicado em: Translational Research and Innovation in Human and Health Science, Annals of Medicine. 2018;50(Sup1):S132, doi:10.1080/07853890.2018.1427445

Introduction: In the last years, consumers are paying increasing attention to the nutritional composition of foods, in order to make healthier food choices, and therefore to prevent chronic diseases. The European Union has faced the challenge of standardizing the nutritional declaration of prepacked foods. Therefore, in 2011, Regulation (EU) No. 1169/2011 on the provision of food information to consumers was published (1). Accordingly, and concerning the declared values on the nutrition declaration, they should be an average and can be obtained by: (a) the manufacturer’s analysis of the food; (b) a calculation from the known or actual average values of the ingredients used; and (c) a calculation from generally established and accepted data. However, the food nutrient content should not deviate markedly from labeled values, otherwise consumers can be misled. Therefore, a tolerance guide regarding the deviations of labeled values for the different nutrients for analytical control purposes has been set up (2). In our study, an analysis regarding the accuracy of labeled nutrition declaration in cereal products was performed. Materials and Methods: In 2015, twelve samples of cereal products (cereal bars and breakfast cereals) were selected from the major supermarket chains in Portugal. An Excel® form was filled out with the labeled information for each one of the selected foods. Afterwards, the same foods were analysed concerning their salt, total fat and fatty acids composition, according to the methods described by Albuquerque et al. (3). Then, all the information was used to perform an analysis of the accuracy of the declared values, considering the tolerance limits defined for salt, total fat and saturated fatty acids (SFA). Results: Considering salt, in two (17%) of the selected foods, the declared values were not in compliance with the tolerance limits, being the analytical values lower than the lower tolerance value. The comparison between declared and analytical values for total fat shows that all the selected foods were within the tolerance limits fixed for this nutrient. On the other hand, for SFA, 33% of the samples were out of the tolerance limits, but from those samples, only one had an analytical value (10.3 g/100 g) higher than the upper tolerance value (4.7 g/100 g). Discussion and Conclusions: Food labels, namely nutrition declaration, are the most direct source of information for consumers. Therefore, it is very important that these labels provide accurate information in order to allow consumers to make informed and healthier dietary choices. In our study, SFA values were the ones for which a higher number of samples was out of the tolerance limits. References: (1) European Parliament/Council of the European Union. Regulation (EU) No 1169/2011 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 25 October 2011 on the provision of food information to consumers. Official J Eur Union, 2011; L304: 18-63. (2) European Commission. Guidance document for competent authorities for the control of compliance with EU legislation. 2012. Available at: https://www.fsai.ie/uploadedfiles/guidance_tolerances_december_2012.pdf. (3) Albuquerque TG, Oliveira MBPP, Sanches-Silva A, Bento AC, Costa HS. The impact of cooking methods on the nutritional quality and safety of chicken breaded nuggets. Food Func. 2016; 7: 2736-46.

This work was funded by INSA project “PTranSALT” (2012DAN828). Tânia Gonçalves Albuquerque acknowledges PhD fellowship (SFRH/BD/99718/2014) funded by FCT, FSE and MEC. M. Antónia Nunes also thanks the support from the project UID/QUI/50006/2013 – POCI/01/0145/FEDER/007265 with financial support from FCT/MEC through national funds and co-financed by FEDER.

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