Food restrictions flawed – Rogerson
North Cornwall MP, Dan Rogerson today (Wednesday) branded the Food Standards Agency Nutrient Profiling Model used by OFCOM to define ‘junk’ foods, as “simplistic and counter-productive”. Mr Rogerson chairs the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Cheese, which held its Annual General Meeting in the Commons yesterday.
The cheese industry is set to be hit by new OFCOM regulations which will restrict television advertising of food and drink to children under the age of 16. The products that are to be restricted are defined by the scientifically-flawed FSA Nutrient Profiling model which categorises products based on portions of 100g – far more than Britons typically eat. Using the current model, cheese, a British favourite, is classified as a “high fat high salt” product and therefore cannot be advertised to children.
Commenting after the All-Party Cheese Group AGM, Mr Rogerson said:
“People in Britain consume on average just 28g of cheese a day, and children eat just half that. It is ‘junk’ food – not cheese – which is the problem in people’s diets.
“As more people – women in particular – are threatened by nutrient deficiencies due to bad diets which can lead to conditions such as osteoporosis, the principle of restricting the advertising of cheese to children defies common sense.
“Cheese provides much needed calcium and protein to children and adults alike. Perversely, although cheese cannot be advertised to children the product from which it is made – whole milk – can be.
“The Food Standards Agency contends that their aim is to encourage companies to reformulate their products to conform to the new regulations. For a highly processed product this maybe an option, but for cheese this is impossible. Cheese is a natural product and has, for example, to be preserved by salt. In any event, why would we ask companies to change a natural product into an artificial one just to tick Ministers’ boxes?
“Liberal Democrats welcomed the Government’s plans to ban advertising of ‘junk’ food during children’s programmes. How preposterous, though, that OFCOM restrictions should be based on a model so flawed as to take cheese off the air, while diet cola, which has no nutritional value whatever, is left firmly on children’s menus.”
