Italians Rally To Defend Nutella From EU

nutritionist fundamentalism

The new European food labelling rules are under threat following an Italian campaign to stop health warnings being printed on the famous chocolate hazelnut spread Nutella. The original campaign started by the European Parliament wanted much stricter rules which would involve a traffic light system where very fattening foods like Nutella would have had a red sticker on them, less fat fattening food would have had an amber sticker and healthy foodstuffs would have been given the green light.

The less drastic new rules which were approved only in draft form would require things like Nutella to have clear labeling on the front of the packaging showing the fat, salt and sugar quantities. Defenders of Nutella have argued that these new rules will demonize this much loved Italian product and scare away consumers from one of Italy’s great treats.

An official committee has been formed called the ‘Hands off Nutella’ committee and has been supported by the Italian regional governor of Piedmont. An Italian cabinet minister in charge of European Union affairs stressed that the negative labeling on Nutella was “nutritionist fundamentalism”

At Ukmedix News we have great respect for all Italian food products and have promoted the Mediterranean diet on numerous occasions but we reckon that this campaign to prevent people knowing exactly how much fat, sugar and salt Nutella contains is actually unfair to the millions of obese individuals in the European Union.

Nutella which has been produced by the chocolate maker Ferrero since 1964 has almost become as important a cultural icon as pizza, pasta and many other Italian delicacies but this does not mean that it should somehow become exempt from the rules regarding food labeling, especially in view of the fact that Europe is facing chronic levels of obesity much of which is motivated by people not being aware of the unhealthy nature and high calorie contents of what they eat.