Consumer lobby group Which? reckons several bakery products could legally carry health and nutritional claims if proposed EC regulation gets the thumbs-up.
The EC’s regulation (EC) 1924/2006 on Nutrition and Health Claims on Foods was passed in May 2006 and aims to ensure foods comply with specific nutritional criteria or ’nutrient profiles’, in order to carry health claims. However, Which? now believes that "the Commission’s criteria for which foods can carry claims has become unscientific and fundamentally flawed".
Bakery products identified as having less than the Commis-sion’s threshold amount of saturated fat - 8g per 100g - include a single Tesco jam doughnut, which has 5.7g of saturated fat per 100g. Products such as doughnuts, custard tarts and ready salted crisps could therefore carry health and nutrition claims.
The proposals, which were due to be put forward at the Standing Committee on General Food Law meeting on 27 March, have now been put back until after the European Parliamentary elections in June, due to a "lack of consensus on various issues".
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