Vote in This Week's Poll: If foods were labeled as healthy or unhealthy, would we be more likely to eat the healthier foods?
Monday April 23, 2007
There's always been some talk about charging extra for unhealthy foods and the University of Virginia Medical School decided to give it a try and see what would happen. Their approach was to label healthy foods with a green sticker while unhealthy foods were labeled with a red sticker. Not only that, but the red-sticker foods also included a $.5 surcharge. After a year, researchers found that people chose healthier foods. The controversy here is in the labeling of foods as good or bad which, for many experts, isn't a good idea since even so-called 'bad' foods can have a place in a healthy person's diet. View that video at CNN Health.
Still, the experiment was interesting, especially in light of another recent news story that picking healthy restaurant food is often tougher than we think. While unlikely to happen, it's interesting think about how we would respond if foods were labeled as healthy or unhealthy. Do you think we'd eat more healthy foods? Vote in this week's poll and tell us what you think.
Poll: If foods were labeled as healthy or unhealthy, would we be more likely to eat the healthier foods?
1. Yes
2. No
3. I'm not sure
4. Other - Please explain in comments
Healthy Food Resources
Comments
If you are already health-conscious then you are more likely to choose the healthier foods
It really depends upon cost for me . . . I’m on a limited budget and I’m betting that anything labled “healthy” is going to cost 20-50% more than something not labled. At least that’s how it works now.
I’ve often wondered what I would order in restaurants if foods were labeled on the menu as unhealthy. I know I can be good at home, but when I go out, I want to indulge, and I feel better off not knowing just how unhealthy it may be.
helth food nuts will definatly go for the healthy stuff but it realy depends on he person and where they are in life
The most nutritious food on earth is in animal food and not in any super market for humans.
Soy beans. ?????????????????
Yes if it’s a dessert or milk product.secondly,lowere fat protein sources.
i think that it would really be nice to go to a grocery srore restaurant, or anywhere and have things labeled good for you. That way I would just have to go in pick it up, and go. No need to stop read, and spend half the day wondering if I just made the right choices. How soon do you think it will start?
What a bunch of eliteists. Trying to save people from themselves because your smarter and you know best how people should live. Telling people what’s good and bad and then taxing the so called bad stuff is 1984 come true. Your going down a slippery slope and I don’t want any part of it.
Firstly, just because a label says “healthy” does not mean it is. Education goes a long way. Anyone can obtain some information about what is actually on the labels. The only difference between someone who learns what ingredients are healthy and not healthy is priority. Eating healthy is not a matter of time or money; it’s priority. If you don’t care then it doesn’t matter what’s in it or what the label says. I’ve heard all the excuses - no time to cook, it’s too expensive - the former is a lie people tell themselves to get out of being responsible adults. Everyone is in control of their time. Everyone should know by now that healthy, whole foods are less expensive than over processed white-powder foods - and that’s BEFORE the doctor bills come in. It is of paramount inmortance that people care about what they put in thier bodies becasue your attitude about your own body directly correlates to your attitude about our planet and the environment. People who eat garbage are oddly the largest producers of garbage and tend to have the weightier pollution footprint. It’s YOUR choice people. How can anyone feel a sense of safety or control in their life if they pass the buck on what they eat? The first step to healing our planet is to heal ourselves of the poisons we put in our bodies - THEN we will be able to see more clearly how each of us contributes to our planet’s demise. That’s the beginning of correcting the damage and our ONLY hope of surviving ourselves.
Yes it would be a good idea to lable .It takes so much longer for me to read the lables.Because i have 3 kids it is very stessful to try and find healty foods.
PS - Taxing junk food is ridiculous! Taxing people for the amount of garbage they produce is a great idea. I can think of MANY other things our society would benefit from the taxation of. What someone puts into their body is their own decision to make. It’s when people pollute the air, earth and water we all share and tell me it’s none of my business how they live that I get angry because they are limiting MY life against my will. People are inherently stupid. Call me elitist. I am because I have an IQ half again that of the national average and I pay the price for the stupidity of others every time they make mistakes on the job - and YES it is happening much more than it did a decade ago. It’s a self-perpetuated downward spiral. I was the only vegetarian I knew for the first 2 of 18 years of it and I was only 18. I make less money than most people I know and still eat better than anyone I have ever known. I’m not vegetarian anymore, btw. So I’m not on that soapbox but I am on this one . Read it and weep, folks! That’s my two cents-worth.
Why do idiots who keep breeding like rabbits? In the words of Bill Hicks, “Can everyone stop your rutting here for a minute and lets get this air-food-water-thing fixed.” If you can’t perform the absolute minimal of human existence like prioritize healthy diet - QUIT TEACHING YOUR KIDS THE SAME IRRESPONSIBLE BEHAVIOR!
To the girl who “hasn’t time” to learn about what she puts into hers and her kids bodies and depends on advertisers to tell her how to live I have only this to say; you could be learning about what foods are good for you and your family rather than reading and writing in response to this and who knows what else you waste your time on. Take control of your life and prioritize. I gotta get outta her lest the idiocy make me insane on top of cynical.
I eat in a helthy manner in general. No label will change that in either direction.
Any reasonable intelligent person can figure this out with general nutrition information available to all, it doesn’t need to be labeled. We need to stop dumbing things down for the lowest common denominator and allow people to make decisions. What’s is good for one person might not be good for me and vice versa.
It think it all depends on cost and my mood. If I’m upset or PMSing, then bring on the chocolate! Also, is it payday? Usually a lot of the healthy foods cost more than a few pizzas that I can just throw into the oven when I get home from work.
I think that Ms.PW owes jewell an appology I found that very rude and uncalled for. It sounds to me that her issues go deeper thenn the lableling of food.
personally, i believe that people should be responsible enough to make their own dietary decisions.
i eat healthy, because i want to. not because a sticker, or a scare tactic.
We have warnings on cigarettes that they will kill you, yet people still smoke. People will eat what they like, regardless of healthy or unhealthy.
Yes, it would help if the food was labeled. Or you can just shop at Trader Joe’s and know that all your buying is healthy. I think most of the time people need to look at serving size as oppose to healthy or not. You would be amazed at how many serving sizes are fit into packages and such.
If you are really conscious, you will educate your self and read the ingredients to determine for your self what’s healthy or not. Just trusting a label or health check symbol is blindly ignorant.
Hint: anything with sugar added is not healthy no matter what the box says
Perhaps my husband would believe a label more thathe believes me. He’s getting tired of my trying to make our meals healthier. He wants what he grew up with.
I think it’s ridiculous that food has to be labeled as either healthy or unhealthy! Don’t people in this day and age know what IS and IS NOT healthy??
I already know the difference between healthy food and junk food, yet I buy both. I assume I would continue to do so.
I prefer to decide for myself if something is healthy or not. The more explicit the label the better. Percent of fat, for example, should be calculated as percent of fat CALORIES not by weight.
labels are already on things, they are being bought more. (does not make them true in some cases) i tend to buy more healthy if labeled certian ways but that still does not control what i put into my body. we all do know waht is healthy and not, that does not make them cheap. how are you going to label fruts and veggies? (obviosly healthy) but when you buy more of one product on a mass scale the price goes down right, well i will still be paying out the *** for squash and blueberries, so i say label it, just to see what happens, we already did it the other way!
I would hate to see things labeled or have the prices jacked up based on what the government or flawed studies say is “healthy” or “unhealthy”.
For the last 50 years we have had such wonderful advice from the AMA etc., such as baby formula is healthier than breast milk. Butter is unhealthy but margerine is good, leading people to spoon pure trans fat onto their food for 30 years.
Remember the no salt episode anyone? Scaring people way from eggs and red meat?
Newer studies have shown past advice has been wrong and often, couldn’t have been worse for your health.
I would rather read labels, eat natural foods, ….use my own common sense, I guess.
This is just a great site with information that will help people that need the advice within this site. Keep up the good work. Great articles about managing stress. It has helped me!
Thank you-Adam