Brussels set to ban GI diet food labels

[Demi]

The Sunday Times
London, UK
14 May, 2006



A NEW regulation from Brussels is threatening one of Britain’s most popular dietary regimes by banning products from publicising their glycaemic index (GI).

Within two years, manufacturers may be prevented from promoting products as “low GI” in a move designed to outlaw misleading advertising. The European parliament will vote on the new measure on Tuesday.

Followers of the diet aim to control their weight by avoiding food with a high GI, indicating that it converts carbohydrates quickly into blood sugar. Typically, high GI foods such as potatoes and white bread are replaced by lower GI options such as pasta and beans.

Many athletes and diabetics, as well as slimmers, use the index.

Critics of the diet claim its weight loss benefits are not scientifically proven and argue that only well-supported nutritional claims should be included on packaging.

Others, however, have accused the European Union of unwarranted meddling.

“This is the nanny state regulating what you eat again as you are too stupid to judge for yourself,” said Martin Callanan, a Tory MEP and member of the parliament’s consumer health committee.

Under the new law, nutritional claims will be accepted only if a majority of the 25 EU members approve. The impact in Britain is likely to be particularly sharp because the GI diet has not taken off in other EU countries.

If adopted, the law on health and nutritional claims will set EU-wide standards for food labels, designed to protect consumers from vague and misleading information about health benefits and combat a looming obesity epidemic. It aims to restrict positive health claims such as “low in fat” on products that are high in salt and sugar or vice versa.


http://www.timesonline.co.uk/newspaper/0,,176-2179445,00.html

[Equinox]

When I followed a low-GI diet a few years back, I followed a list. I had the index for two hundred raw material type foods written down in a book, and I chose from the list and cooked my own meals. Anyone who is serious about doing a low GI diet can do as I did, to some degree, and even if they can't cook because of time concerns, there are way to calculate for yourself approximately how high something would be, but the best possible way to do it is to stick to whole foods. I don't really see a problem here, as I would not be remotely likely to trust a label like that in the first place. Maybe this is actually a good thing. We all know that there are a lot of products marked low carb who really aren't all that low, and that "reduced carb" can mean almost anything. After that there's the advanced shell game with how large a portion really is (and let me just say, I don't envy Americans their food labeling, in Norway it's the law that nutritional breakdowns are listed per 100 grams). Maybe this will weed out some of the cheats and tricks adn allow people to make healthier choices.

Because none of us are stupid, and we are all capable of educating ourselves. Just because a bunch of lemmings decide to jump off a cliff doesn't mean we have to have our choices limited for our own good.

[Scars]

When I followed a low-GI diet a few years back, I followed a list. I had the index for two hundred raw material type foods written down in a book, and I chose from the list and cooked my own meals. Anyone who is serious about doing a low GI diet can do as I did, to some degree, and even if they can't cook because of time concerns, there are way to calculate for yourself approximately how high something would be, but the best possible way to do it is to stick to whole foods. I don't really see a problem here, as I would not be remotely likely to trust a label like that in the first place. Maybe this is actually a good thing. We all know that there are a lot of products marked low carb who really aren't all that low, and that "reduced carb" can mean almost anything. After that there's the advanced shell game with how large a portion really is (and let me just say, I don't envy Americans their food labeling, in Norway it's the law that nutritional breakdowns are listed per 100 grams). Maybe this will weed out some of the cheats and tricks adn allow people to make healthier choices.

Because none of us are stupid, and we are all capable of educating ourselves. Just because a bunch of lemmings decide to jump off a cliff doesn't mean we have to have our choices limited for our own good.

I think you nail it when you say that we are capable of educating ourselves. Labels in this case would only confuse an already confusing science.

GI/GL is actually a lot more complex than authors will lead us to believe. For example;

- Most foods do not have a definitive GI - it depends on how the food is processed, stored, ripened, cut and cooked.
- BRead is typically high GI whether whole-wheat or white
Pasta: Low GI wheather whole wheat or white - there are also many variations according to the type of pasta and how long it is cooked for.
Rice: Reanges from high to low
Sugars: Range from high (glucose) to low (fructose) with sucrose being in the middle.

To add to the complexity, some foods with low GI values produce a greater insulin spike (lentils, as an example). Further, we rarely eat foods in isolation - the combination of other foods eaten will impact the overall GI.

Xavier Pi-Sunyer out of Columbia U. has done some great research in this field - he claims that the GI may account for less than a quarter of the insulin response of a food.

It would be very difficult and fruitless to allow such labelling IMO