Apr 22 2024 – 18:26 hrs.
What happened?
The Ministry of Health (Minsal) is studying new warning labeling for food. However, this time I wouldn’t say High Sugar or High Sodium, but rather look for warn about sweeteners.
The measure would respond to a guide that the World Health Organization (WHO) published almost a year ago in which it advised against the use of sugar substitutes such as saccharin, sucralose or stevia to lose weight and especially for the kidssince they would not help reduce diseases such as cancer or diabetes.
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The possible determination of the Minsal has caused some resentment in the food industry, since could confuse consumers if, for example, a product were to present the High in Sugars seal and also the High in Sweeteners seal, if it were applied.
What do experts say about the use of sweeteners?
Veronica Sambranutritionist and academic at the University of Chile, said in Meganoticias Ahora that “the (labeling) law had a good purpose, which was to reduce the consumption of sugar, sodium, and saturated fats. The problem was that the industry obviously wanted to reduce the sugar, but replaced it with non-caloric sweeteners and then we went to the other extreme, using them excessively.
“Countries like Mexico adopted our law, but they include the legend “not recommended for children, contains sweetener.” We still cannot be sure that they are completely harmful, but there are studies that have shown that children who consume more sweeteners have increased risk of developing overweight or obesity“he added.
The expert maintained that is in favor of new food labeling and that this “should specify, because or else it is to alarm the population that all sweeteners are associated with negative effects, which It is not like this“, he specified, “since there are articles that are not sweeteners, but non-traditional sugars“.
In that sense, he called for “hopefully lowering the threshold of use (of sweeteners). You have to think that stevia is 300 times sweeter than sugar, sucralose 600 times sweeter.” Thus, he mentioned “the allulosethe taratosawhich are these non-traditional sugars that are lower in calories,” but warned that “they could cause gastrointestinal problems.”
“Sugar is a nutrientwe need it, but always in the right measure (…) the problem is processed foods, we must try not to choose those,” concluded the nutritionist.
