So I was shopping at Coles today and going through the breakfast aisle I noticed an old childhood favourite, Milo Cereal, I grabbed it but just to have a squiz at the the nutrition information (yes such a nerd).
Yeah a little more than I was expecting but nothing surprising: 26.9 grams of sugar per 100 g cereal.
Imagine filling your bowl a quarter full of sugar first thing in the morning every day for x number of years.. I put it back on the shelf and thanked my lucky metabolism I was an active kid burning enough glucose to keep my insulin down enough to keep my cells becoming resistant.
As I was walking away I couldn't help noticing the brazenly advertised look-at-me 4 Star 'Health Rating':
This got my attention. I started wondering.. who gives out these ratings, apparently the Government (1)? What if any criteria do they use and more importantly how on earth something over 25% sugar and marketed to kids deserves 4/5 of anything other than some kind of warning label.
Pretty annoyed, and just trying to find something I could take camping that wasn't some cartoon chocolate infused health-washed breakfast candy, I went for the classic Sultana Bran and got 3 packs.
It wasn't until I got back home that I realised the sultana bran was actually worse!. with 28.2 g of sugar per 100 g ! and yet.. an even higher health star safety rating!:
This was getting too much. We'd almost have been better off getting a bucket of ice cream, it might not have as many health stars, but at least it would have less sugar (21.7 grams per 100) (3)
Considering we are in the midst of an obesity crisis, with 1.2 million Australians living with one form of diabetes or another (a growing number of which are kids) (2) I find this blatant corruption of a potentially good idea in the health star rating system - one that should be in place to assist families in making wise health decisions - not tricking them into bad ones.
To be honest the whole thing just typifies the what I see as a chronic lack of leadership in the Government right now, one willing to sell anything to make a profit - which apparently includes the health of its citizens.
(1) http://healthstarrating.gov.au/internet/healthstarrating/publishing.nsf/content/home
(2) http://www.health.gov.au/internet/main/publishing.nsf/content/chronic-diabetes
(3) https://shop.coles.com.au/a/a-national/product/nestle-peters-original-ice-cream-vanilla-239785p
