The federal government is likely to introduce a star system for food packages next year to help consumers make healthier food choices, ABC’s Lateline reported last week. Much like the energy star rating…
Health claims are commonly exploited to promote the consumption of highly processed foods.
Flickr / ajleon
Australian and New Zealand ministers responsible for food regulation last week bowed to lobbying from processed food manufacturers and agreed to permit them to market products with general level health…
No matter how friendly your detergent is, it does damage.
NPS Photo/Neal Herbert
After the big wet, spare a thought for the health of your waterways and the substances that wash into them.
Bacteria are important to the health of the waterways running through our backyards. As decomposers…
It depends on the drug, how it’s been stored and whether the pack has been opened.
saveas new
It’s late in the night. And after a long day at work, you have a splitting headache. You rattle around in the bottom drawer of the bathroom vanity to find a packet of paracetamol tablets you know are hiding…
By claiming too much, Steggles has raised the question: how much space does a chicken need?
aprilskiver
For the animal industry and the animal protection movement, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission’s (ACCC) pending case against poultry producer Steggles is set to be their very own version…
The food industry has won this round but the traffic light labelling fight isn’t over yet.
IJClark
The Federal Government has defied expert advice and rejected a traffic light food labelling system for packaged foods, saying there wasn’t enough evidence to show it would give consumers the information…
Vitamins, minerals and herbal therapies should live up to the claims on their packaging.
Peter Sunna
Two out of three Australians use complementary medicines to boost their nutrition, alleviate various symptoms and improve their overall health and well-being. There are around 10,000 products to choose…
Consumers need more useful information about assessing the freshness and safety of food products.
Picture this: you arrive home from work feeling a bit peckish. Sliced mango and a dollop of yoghurt should ease the cravings until dinner, you think. You open the fridge door and, horror, no yoghurt. Not…
SPF50+ only increases protection by 1.3%.
Flickr/the half blood prince
It’s likely Australia’s sunscreen regulations will change this summer, enabling manufacturers to label their products as SPF50+.
The sunscreen industry has championed the proposed change, led by Standards…
Food labels may help curb the obesity epidemic but opponents willfully misrepresent what we know about them.
Marshall Astor
Nutritional labels on food packaging empower consumers to make healthier and more informed food choices. But like other measures taken for public health, food labelling also has its critics.
There’s clear…
Australia needs a tax on unhealthy foods that covers more than just fat content.
Flickr/ms Tea
Australia should follow the lead of Denmark and consider taxing foods high in saturated fats to curb the nation’s growing obesity problem, Greens leader Bob Brown said at yesterday’s tax forum.
This week…
Colouring makes food eye-catching but such chemicals could be affecting attention and activity.
wwarby/Flickr
A growing body of evidence is focusing attention on the dangers posed by the myriad chemicals in our food. Although certainty around the precise impact of these chemicals is some way off, what we do know…
Legislation requiring tobacco products to be in plain packaging was passed by the House of Representatives last night. This is the first such measure in the world to come so close to becoming law.
We…
Alcohol is currently exempt from the labelling requirements that all other products we eat and drink have to follow.
Klearchos Kapoutsis
Despite known risks of drinking, health and safety warning labels have been noticeably absent from alcoholic beverages in Australia.
But that might be about to change, with the Government today seeking…
Certifying timber gives some level of certainty that forest products are sustainable.
CIFOR/Flickr
It can be hard to know whether the forest products you buy have been produced sustainably. Forestry certifications were established to give a bit more certainty, but what do they really mean? When you…
Light or “lite” can refer to the colour, weight or kilojoule content of a product.
Flickr/Trusty pics
How much can you believe about claims made on food packaging? For any mention of the word “light” or “lite”, feel free to add your own definition – that will have about as much credibility as any claim…
There are a lot of natural things you wouldn’t want to eat.
Timothy Valentine/Flickr
Producers and retailers of everything from toilet paper to homes want you to believe that their product is “green”. More are “greenwashing” their products.
Greenwashing is the misleading claims of environmental…
When branding is removed smokers rate the product as less appealing.
AAP
For a policy the tobacco industry claims “won’t work” or that there “is no evidence” to support its implementation, plain packaging has elicited a deafening chorus of conflicting arguments as to why it…
The WTO allows countries to take measures “necessary for public health.”
AAP
The Government’s plan to introduce plain packaging for tobacco products has been raised at the Council for TRIPS meeting in Geneva this week.
In a note to TRIPS delegates, the Indonesian Government has…
Part of the British American Tobacco Australia campaign launched today.
The tobacco industry has launched a national media campaign today, questioning the Federal Government’s proposed plain packaging legislation.
It will also release a series of confidential government documents…
Informative labelling can put us on the road to ethical choices.
AAP
The most important factor determining whether consumers avoid purchasing a product containing palm oil is not how they feel about orangutans, the environment, or anything else for that matter. It’s whether…
NGOs, public health associations and consumer organisations disagree with industry groups about the most useful system for labelling our foods.
The fight over how to label our food has never been more intense. On one side of the argument we have public health associations, non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and consumer groups looking for effective…
