[01:11.19]JACK:JACK: I've still got loads to do for our report on nutritional food labels.
[01:16.22]ALICE:Me too.
[01:17.80]What did you learn from doing the project about your own shopping habits?
[01:22.37]JACK:Well, I've always had to check labels for traces of peanuts in everything I eat because of my allergy.
[01:29.57]But beyond that I 've never really been concerned enough to check how healthy a product is.
[01:35.72]ALICE:This project has actually taught me to read the labels much more carefully.
[01:41.04]I tended to believe claims on packaging like low in fat.
[01:46.60]But I now realise that the healthy yoghurt I 've bought for years is full of sugar and that it's actually quite high in calories.
[01:56.28]JACK:Ready meals are the worst... comparing the labels on supermarket pizzas was a real eye-opener.
[02:03.45]Did you have any idea how many calories they contain?I was amazed.
[02:08.55]ALICE:Yes, because unless you read the label really carefully you wouldn't know that the nutritional values given are for half a pizza.
[02:18.21]JACK:When most people eat the whole pizza.
[02:20.31]Not exactly transparent it?
[02:22.96]ALICE:Not at all.
[02:24.09]But I expect it won't stop you from buying pizza?
[02:28.59]JACK:Probably not, no!
[02:29.81]I thought comparing the different labelling systems used by food manufacturers was interesting.
[02:36.26]I think the kind of labelling system used makes a big difference.
[02:40.92]ALICE:Which one did you prefer?
[02:42.80]JACK:I liked the traditional daily value system best-the one which tells you what proportion of your required daily intake of each ingredient the product contains.
[02:54.95]I’m not sure it's the easiest for people to use but at least you get the full story.
[03:00.53]I like to know all the ingredients in a product-not just how much fat, salt and sugar they contain.
[03:07.49]ALICE:But it's good supermarkets have been making an effort to provide reliable information for customers.
[03:14.58]JACK:Yes.There just needs to be more consistently between labelling systems used by different supermarkets, in terms of portion sizes, etc.
[03:23.90]ALICE:Mmm.The labels on the different brands of chicken flavour crisps were quite revealing too, weren’t they?
[03:31.31]JACK:Yeah.I don’t understand how they can get away with calling them chicken flavor when they only contain artificial additives.
[03:40.15]ALICE:I know.
[03:41.14]I'd at least have expected them to contain a small percentage of real chicken.
[03:46.49]JACK:Absolutely.
[03:47.64]ALICE:I think having nutritional food labeling has been a good idea, don't you?
[03:52.38]I think it will change people's behaviour and stop mothers, in particular, buying the wrong things.
[03:59.56]JACK:But didn't that study kind of prove the opposite?
[04:03.32]People didn't necessarily stop buying unhealthy products.
[04:07.36]ALICE:They only said that might be the case.
[04:10.85]Those findings weren't that conclusive and it was quite a small-scale study.
[04:16.02]I think more research has to be done.
[04:18.85]JACK:Yes, I think you're probably right.
[04:57.30]JACK:What do you think of the traffic-light system?
[05:00.70]ALICE:I think supermarkets like the idea of having a colour-coded system - red, orange or green 一 for levels of fat, sugar and salt in a product.
[05:11.38]JACK:But it's not been adopted universally.
[05:13.80]And not on all products.
[05:15.69]Why do you suppose that is?
[05:17.75]ALICE:Pressure from the food manufacturers.
[05:20.31]Hardly surprising that some of them are opposed to flagging up how unhealthy their products are.
[05:26.42]JACK:I'd have thought it would have been compulsory.
[05:29.42]It seems ridiculous it isn't?
[05:31.19]ALICE:I know.
[05:32.15]And what I couldn't get over is the fact that it was brought in without enough consultation- a lot of experts had deep reservations about it.
[05:41.81]JACK:That is a bit weird.
[05:43.41]I suppose there's an argument for doing the research now when consumers are familiar with this system.
[05:50.03]ALICE:Yeah, maybe.
[05:51.67]JACK:The participants in the survey were quite positive about the traffic-light system.
[05:56.55]ALICE:Mmm.But I don't think they targeted the right people.
[06:01.13]They should have focused on people with low literacy levels because these labels are designed to be accessible to them.
[06:09.25]JACK:Yeah.But it's good to get feedback from all socio-economic groups.
[06:12.96]And there wasn't much variation in their responses.
[06:17.20]ALICE:No.
[06:18.30]But if they hadn't interviewed participants face-to-face.They could have used a much bigger sample size.
[06:24.07]I wonder why they chose that method?
[06:26.66]JACK:Dunno.
[06:27.96]How were they selected?
[06:29.69]Did they volunteer or were they approached?
[06:32.70]ALICE:I think they volunteered.
[06:34.79]The thing that wasn't stated was how often they bought packaged food - all we know is how frequently they used the supermarket.
