The Ministry of health has supported the labelling of products according to the principle “traffic light”
Moscow. April 13. INTERFAX.RU — health Ministry proposes not to divide foods into good and bad, and to highlight in green or “traffic lights” on the package, those that contain a low concentration of salt, sugar and fat, said the Minister Veronika Skvortsova.
“We don’t want it to be painful for the market, (which is why we offer — if) to introduce it on a voluntary basis,” she added.
According to her, the Ministry of health together with the Institute of preventive medicine and the Institute of nutrition of RAS FANO has prepared special guidelines for the separation of the food groups.
The first group includes products that can be all recommended for a healthy balanced diet that consists of vegetables, fruits, fresh and frozen meat, fish, poultry and so on, said the head of Department.
“There is a (second) group as a “gray area” when products can be marked as healthy in that case, if the concentration of salt, sugar, TRANS and animal fats does not exceed certain concentrations. Let’s say this is all semi-finished products or juices are those products which are already processed in a certain way and sometimes they use preservatives or elevated concentrations of sugar or salt,” she added.