News Corp reveals major review into health star rating system

Australian diets are so poor, we need all fruit and vegetables to be labelled with a five-star health star rating. That’s just one of the shocking recommendations from a major five-year review.

Exclusive: Australian diets are so poor we need all fruit and vegetables to be labelled with a five-star health star rating in order to encourage more consumption of wholefoods and tackle the obesity crisis.

Salad mixes with no added dressing or croutons and packaged cut fruit would also be automatically labelled with five stars.

That’s one of the recommendations from a major independent five-year review into the Health Star Rating system to be released today and seen early by News Corp Australia.

It could mean supermarkets would need to display posters in the produce section explaining fresh fruit and vegetables were a five-star item or even have fruit stickers display the star rating icon.

Lisa Malherbe with daughters Lucy, Mila and Josie, 3. Picture: Jason Edwards

All packaged fruit and vegetables would be encouraged to display the rating.

An overhaul of the Health Star Rating calculator is also among the key recommendations in the review out today (Monday) in order to better bring the system in line with current Dietary Guidelines and get Australians to make better food choices.

Health Star Rating is a voluntary front-of-pack labelling scheme that rates the overall nutritional profile of packaged food and assigns it an interpretative rating from 0.5 to 5 stars.

MORE: Why obese kids cost taxpayers millions

MORE: Overweight teens ‘could be infertile’

Harsher calculations for total sugars, sodium and a redefining of dairy categories is another recommendation by the review that would see hundreds of products potentially downgraded.

These include some yeast spreads such as Vegemite, breakfast cereals like Nutri-Grain and Milo, muesli bars, sugary yoghurts and other discretionary items.

Tara Scogie, with daughters Aria and Melody, says she doesn’t really use the Health Star Rating when out shopping for her young family but always tries to choose unpackaged, healthy foods. Picture: David Swift.

Another key change recommended in the highly-anticipated report includes removing the option for manufacturers to use only the energy icon where kilojoules are displayed on the front of the packet — as opposed to a clear star rating.

This is mostly seen on non-dairy beverages and confectionary and the report states “makes it difficult for consumers to compare products”.

Non-dairy beverages would also receive a boost, with higher ratings for flavoured waters and drinks closer in nutritional value to water.

Plain water would receive a five-star rating, flavoured waters 4.5, 100 per cent fruit and vegetable juices between 2.5 and 4 stars, diet drinks no more than 3.5 stars and sugary soft drinks between 0.5 and 2 stars.

“The proposed changes would see decreases to the (health star ratings) of approximately 8 per cent of products … and increases to the (health star ratings) of 15 per cent of products,” the report states.

Today’s draft report, which will be open until 25 March for final soundings, is the result of extensive consultation, including public forums and the consideration of 483 stakeholder submissions.

Healthy oils and oil-based spreads, including products such as natural peanut butter or olive oil spread, would be winners with a higher star rating under the new overhaul.

And, while still not compulsory — the report sets strong targets to have 70 per cent take up of Health Star Ratings within four years.

This is up from the current 30.5 per cent take up in Australia and 21 per cent take up in New Zealand since the system first began in June 2014.

The review knocked back proposals to calculate added sugars and total sugars separately and also to incorporate wholegrain score.

Aria Jones and mum Lauren David enjoy some fruit. Picture: Liam Kidston

Two in three Australians are considered overweight or obese and Australia is the fifth most obese nation in the world according to the OECD.

Minister responsible for food policy Bridget McKenzie said Australia’s Health Star Rating system was world leading.

“It is a tool families can use to make healthier choices by comparing similar foods,” she said yesterday.

Executive Manager of the Obesity Policy Coalition Jane Martin said changes were desperately needed to the Health Star Rating system.

She said the system should be made compulsory in order to have significant impact.

“This shouldn’t be opt out and we saw mandatory country of origin labelling introduced within a year successfully,” Ms Martin said.

“The reality is it is being used as a marketing tool and often products in the same category with the same manufacturer are either including or not including star rating if it suits their purposes.”

Former MasterChef contestant and healthy eating advocate Alice Zaslavsky said suggestions to label fruit and vegetables with a five-star rating was “insulting” to consumers.

“I think as long as the health star rating system can be gamed by companies who can add extra ingredients to get a higher rating it is never going to be an accurate measure of the benefit of a particular food,” Ms Zaslavsky said.

“What we need is to put this effort and money into making fresh fruit and vegetables more accessible financially for consumers and showing them what to do with it.”

The major report follows a News Corp Eat Real survey of 22,000 Australians released this month that found 93 per cent of Australian adults were not meeting their recommended daily intake of fruit and vegetables which could be putting them at risk of reduced life expectancy.

Parents were among the worst offenders according to the findings.

Only 41 per cent of 35-44 year-olds are meeting their Recommended Daily Intake of fruit with a dismal eight per cent meeting vegetable RDIs according to the survey.

The final report into the Health Star Rating review will be released in May.

@pollietracker

FOODS THAT COULD BE DOWNGRADED

Yeast spreads like Vegemite

Breakfast cereals with high total sugars — including possibly Milo cereal and NutriGrain

Yoghurts aimed at kids that are high in total sugars

Other dairy desserts (creme brulee’s, custard etc)

Jellies and water-based ice confections

Fruit juices

Chocolate bars and lollies

Cream cheese

Dips

Biscuits

Savoury sauces

FOODS THAT COULD SEE AN INCREASE

Natural peanut butter

Olive oil spread

Flavoured water

Fresh fruit and vegetables

Legumes

Salad mixes with no added dressing or croutons

Chopped and refrigerated fruit

Canned water chestnuts

Soft cheeses like brie and Camembert

Unripened cheeses like ricotta or cottage

KEY RECOMMENDATIONS

1. The Health Star Rating system be continued

2. All products need to display the star icon, rather than some being allowed to now just display the energy graphic, to ensure consistency and ease for consumers to compare products

3. Governments, industry, public health and consumer bodies to invest in increased promotion of the health star rating system over the next two years to dispel confusion and increase awareness of how it can help healthy eating

4. Changes be made to how health star rating is calculated to better align with dietary guidelines. These include — all fruit and vegetables be given a 5 health star rating, total sugars more strongly penalised — lowering the HSR of 5 per cent of products, a redefining of dairy categories, increasing HSRs for healthier oils and oil-based spreads, jellies and water-based ice confections have HSRs lowered.

5. Changes to the calculation for non-dairy beverages to better discern water and drinks similar in nutritional profile from high energy drinks

6. Joint funding by federal, state and territory and New Zealand governments to continue for a further four years

7. Minor changes to the governance of the health star rating system to improve consumer confidence

8. Enhance the critical infrastructure to support implementation and evaluation of food and nutrition-related public health initiatives.

9. Governments set a clear uptake target of 70 per cent of products by 2023

10. Two existing guides on the Health Star Rating system be combined, revised and strengthened.

@pollietracker