Nikki Hart: Nutritionist on the value of the health star ratings on food

A nutritionist is defending health star ratings, despite the little impact they have. 

Otago University has led a probe of the decade-old voluntary system for rating food products, finding they only slightly improved diet. 

It calculates it'd save the health system about 70 times more if it were made compulsory. 

Nutritionist Nikki Hart told Mike Hosking it is a helpful system for consumers. 

She says people aren't looking at the back of the packet, so the rating gives people a good idea. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Not surprisingly turns out a health star system and other
things you see on the side of food that's not
up to much either. New studies found only minor health
gains have been main nutrition. As Nikki hearts with this, Nikki,
good morning, morning, Mike. I could have told you this
is very rudimentary, isn't it.

Speaker 2 (00:15):
Yes, yes, we still want the consumer to have faith
in the products that they're buying, right, But my problem
with it is that if there's not a good uptake
on it, the food manufacturers look as though they're picking
and choose in which products the stars on. Well they are, yes,
you know, and it's fun to pack labeling. So and

(00:37):
let's be honest, package food is never going to be
as good as unpackaged food. So we've got to give
the consumer some idea of what their product is that
product healthy. But you know, unless there's greater uptake in this,
how's the consumer suposed to know?

Speaker 1 (00:51):
Could you ever get around it? Even if you made
it compulsory. All the stuff we bring in packaged from offshore,
you can't expect them to do it, and that becomes
a problem.

Speaker 2 (00:59):
Well, and we do import a lot of products, right,
but you know, we are getting on top of those
important products as well. I think the thing for me
is that the food manufacturers that have been upfront and
reformulated the products are doing a good job. It just
is just not enough buying. And until there's enough buy

(01:20):
and the consumer is still in the dark about.

Speaker 1 (01:22):
Behind, how much consumer buying do we need? In other words,
if you look at a packet, you can in fact
see it's not the star system, it's the ingredients on
the back, and if you know what the ingredients are,
it's all there if you want it.

Speaker 2 (01:34):
Yeah. But I mean a lot of people don't look
at the back of the packets. Not really, it's the
fund to the packets that they're looking at. So that's
where that health star is quite useful because it gives
you an idea. But it's packaged food, Mic, you know,
it's not for fruit or a vegetable. So just because
there's fruit and vegetables, perhaps an amuseally bar doesn't mean
that that allows you to opt out of eating thread

(01:55):
and vegetables.

Speaker 1 (01:56):
This is true, Niki Well said, appreciate it, Nikki heart
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