FSSAI backs daily limits over warning labels on packaged food: Experts

The Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) has proposed displaying the government’s recommended daily limits for added sugar, saturated fat and salt alongside a product’s nutrient content per 100 g and its serving size, rather than using warning symbols to flag foods high in these nutrients.

The proposal, contained in a compliance affidavit filed before the Supreme Court last week, marks the latest turn in a long-running debate over how packaged food should communicate nutrition risks to consumers.

Instead of a simple front-of-pack warning telling shoppers that a product is high in sugar, salt or saturated fat, FSSAI’s latest approach would provide more information and leave consumers to interpret it.

That is precisely what nutrition experts and public-health campaigners object to. Their argument is that a front-of-pack system should work at a glance, rather than require shoppers to compare nutrient values, serving sizes and recommended limits while standing in a supermarket aisle.

“This (the latest proposal) is not compliance- but defiance,” said Dr Arun Gupta, convenor, Nutrition Advocacy for Public Interest (NAPi), and former member, PM’s Council on India’s Nutrition Challenges.

The latest proposal also follows an earlier, very different model: the Indian Nutrition Rating (INR), a half-star-to-five-star system intended to give packaged foods an overall nutritional



score.

The SC has been considering a petition seeking mandatory FOPL warnings for foods high in sugar, salt and saturated fat amid alarming rise of consumption of ultra-processed food (UPF), often low in nutrient value, high in salt, sugar and fat and also containing several additives not used in the kitchen commonly, in India.

The Indian Council of Medical Research-National Institute of Nutrition (ICMR-NIN) estimates that nearly 57 % of India’s disease burden, which includes non-communicable and metabolic disorders such as cardiovascular conditions, diabetes, obesity and cancers, are linked with poor dietary choices.

Apart from adults, India is also seeing a worrying rise of these diseases in adolescents and children, pushing demands to discourage growing consumption of UPF in the country.

Under the latest position placed before the SC, labels would show nutrient content per 100 g, serving size and recommended daily limits for added sugar, saturated fat and salt.

That differs from a warning-label system, in which a prominent symbol or text on the front of a packet would explicitly flag a product as high in a particular nutrient.

The distinction is important. A nutrition declaration answers: “How much does this product contain?” A warning label answers: “Is that amount high enough to be a concern?”

For public-health advocates, the second question is more useful at the point of purchase.