Ready meals and food labelling
Our expert Azmina Govindji discusses functional foods - the lowdown on those added extras
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Transcript
Presenter - We're in an -instant- society. We want things quickly - ready-made foods, for example. But are they necessarily good for you? I know that a lot of salt and high fat content has been mentioned - but aren't they getting better now, these ready-meals?
Azmina - I think some of them are, and some retailers will have their own healthy-eating versions of ready-meals, so that's promising.
Presenter - I think you might find fish fillets, for example, with a special, herb crust or something on top of them, but they are all fresh and ready to throw in the oven. Surely that can't be too bad?
Azmina - They vary. Some of them are and some of them might be very high in salt or have some trans-fat or saturated fat in them. They might be higher in calories.
Presenter - How do we know? We look at the labels now, do we?
Azmina - Look at the labels. But usually the healthier-eating versions are better.
Presenter - There's been a bit of controversy about the labelling schemes recently, too. Two different sorts of labelling at the moment, I think, is that right? And it's quite difficult to know exactly what you should be looking at.
Azmina - It is difficult. The Foods Standards Agency did create their -traffic light- coding system and that's based on lots of consumer research. They've been taking years asking consumers -What is it that you'd find the simplest?- and what they've found is that simple colour-coded -traffic lights- is easy, because I know red means -stop- and I know green means -go- and amber is somewhere in the middle. So this is why the FSA created this system.
Presenter - Azmina, just more one simple thing. Is it really important to rinse your food? For example, fruit which you buy, vegetables, and foodstuffs like that, fresh foodstuffs. Is it really important to do that?
Azmina - Yes, definitely. Remember, you're going to have the chemicals, the pesticides on the top. Rinse well, peel if you have to, and then enjoy.
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