Canada’s Health Check Logo Under Fire
Health Check is Canada’s information program to help consumers make healthy food choices. Created by Heart and Stroke Foundation, its logo design is stamped on a food item or restaurant to guarantee that it meets the criteria set by Canada’s Food Guide to Healthy Eating. According to this organization, it is like “shopping with the Heart and Stroke Foundation’s dietitians”.
It is similar to the front-of-pack Choices logo headed by multinational company Unilever. But now it is heavily criticized because of the high sugar, fat and sodium contents found in some of the 1,500 food items with “Health Check” logo.
Raised by an obesity expert and medical director of Bariatric Medical Institute, Dr. Yoni Freedhoff believes this could deceive many consumers who rely on this logo design every time they buy food items. To make matters worse, Freedhoff thinks recommending these foods is tantamount to encouraging consumers to acquire chronic diseases like hypertension and diabetes. Some of the items put in question are cookie bars, muffins and flavored milk drinks.
In defense, the organization claims it is making some changes concerning this program. In fact, more than 100 items were affected by the said changes. Manufacturers of these items are now ordered to reformulate to meet the standards. The bad news is that the deadline is on December 28, 2009!
via The Ottawa Citizen
