Food police target tucker

By GREG ANSLEY and SHENAGH GLEESON

Tough new action needs to be taken to force food companies to warn New Zealand and Australian consumers that their food could be killing them, a report says.

This could include stricter labelling rules, a mass anti-tobacco-style education campaign and laws to force restaurants and takeaway food bars to disclose the fats and oils they use.

The report, published as a briefing paper by the Australian Federal Parliament's information and research services, says the issue of labelling at food outlets has always been dumped in the too-hard basket.

Authorities should no longer ignore the accelerating trend away from home cooking and towards restaurant meals, it says. The transtasman food regulator, the Australia New Zealand Food Authority, needs to take a more active role and impose stricter rules.

ANZFA is phasing in a transtasman labelling code that will require manufacturers to include a breakdown of total fats and saturated fats. The code comes into full effect in 18 months.

The Australian report's recommendations follow growing concern at obesity in New Zealand and Australia, especially among children, as the low-cholesterol, low-fat message is buried by advertising, ignorance, indulgence and changing buying habits.

New Zealanders now spend about a fifth of their food budgets in restaurants, fast-food outlets or on ready-cooked supermarket products, often eating unhealthy, hidden fats.

The report warns that heart and other related potentially fatal diseases will rise with the growing obesity of both countries. Heart disease causes about 43 per cent of deaths in New Zealand each year.

As health systems struggle to cope, Government budgets will face massive blowouts, the report warns.

At the same time, the report says the message about high-fat, high-cholesterol foods is being swamped by factors that range from changing lifestyles to misleading advertising.

The report warns that the traditionally independent voices on health and nutrition - public science organisations and universities - are increasingly dependent on funding from the food industry.

The Heart Foundation's medical director, Dr Diana North, said the report's recommendations were exciting. The fat content of food products should be clearly labelled and it was a good idea to get restaurants and takeway outlets to state what fats they used.

New Zealanders had to understand about the different kinds of fats and which were bad for them. Saturated and transunsaturated fats were bad, while polyunsaturated and monosaturated fats were good. Omega 3 unsaturated fats from fish were also good for you.