Understanding the traffic light system food labels...

[FriendsDontLie]

I don’t know if this is the right place to post, but it is food!

I don’t really get the food labels. I have packet of white fish that has 0.26g salt in, 5% of daily allowance, and it’s green. Then a packet of crisps, 0.28g salt, again 5% but red. Surely 5% is 5% regardless of the food it’s in, and should therefore be the same colour? Or am I missing something

[Blondie1984]

Are you looking at per 100g or per serving?

[PragmaticWench]

It'll be the total salt, so work out the amount due to the weight of the product.

[PragmaticWench]

Unless I'm wrong, which is more than possible...

[FriendsDontLie]

I’ll put a picture of both in. I think I’m being dense but it’s definitely per serving, it’s 5% of daily allowance, not 5% of the food..

I don’t understand why 5% isn’t the same colour regardless of the food it’s in? Surely if 5% of your daily allowance if red one item it should be the same across the board?

[FriendsDontLie]

Forgot pics!

[AlbusPercival]

They should be the same.

The cut off point is 0.3g salt per 100g. The crisps are wrong, maybe a rounding error.

Tweet the company, and ask them to rectify

[AlbusPercival]

Ah wait just seen photos. The amounts on pack are per packet/ portion.

Traffic lights are done per 100g.

[iklboo]

The crisps looks like the info is per bag - so maybe 28g, which would be 10% salt at 0.28g per bag

The fish is per 100g - 0.29g per 100g is much lower.

[FriendsDontLie]

So it doesn’t mean 5% of your daily intake? I think that’s where the my confusion is coming from, as it says “of your reference intake”

It’s been a long day....

[AlbusPercival]

There's two separate things being shown together.

One the % of your reference intake. That says if you eat the entire serving what percentage of your daily allowance of that nutrient you have had.

The colours give separate information. They relate to how "healthy" the food is and is based on 100g of the product, not the portion size. So for salt, less than 0.3g per 100g is green 0.3 - 1.5 is amber and over 1.5 is red. (Don't quote me on the 1.5 I'm not certain of the precise number). The boundaries are different for fat and sugar.

Does that make sense?