even high fat foods such as crisps and doughnuts would qualify as healthy.

At Ukmedix News we believe that food labeling leaves much to be desired in the United Kingdom and that the government needs to step in and legislate to make sure that food production companies do not give misleading impressions about the health benefits of their products. The British Heart Foundation along with Cancer Research UK, Diabetes UK and Which? have all got together to warn that new rules issued by the European Union could in fact end up with positive health recommendations being printed on unhealthy food. The EU rules which were designed to warn about high levels of sugar, salt and fat have been relaxed to the point where even high fat foods such as crisps and doughnuts would qualify as healthy.

The relevant organisations have formally written to the UK Health Secretary Alan Johnson saying that the government must do something to stop the new food labeling rules from becoming law. A spokesman from Which? said that it was ridiculous that even pork sausages and custard tarts would be able to make positive nutrition claims which would undermine the battle that the United Kingdom was facing with unhealthy eating and obesity. Which? also said that the labeling had been "unscientific and flawed" and needed to be “completely rewritten.”

A review done by Oxford University on 120 normal foodstuffs noted that only seven percent of them would be banned from claiming they were specifically nutritious under the new rules that the EU is suggesting and that 60 percent of all foodstuffs could claim to be healthy. Labeling is extremely important when it comes to food choices and food manufacturers are very conscious of this and it is likely that they have been lobbying hard to allow them to print more or less what they want on food items. 

If the UK government is serious about tackling obesity they must oppose this proposal from the European Union.