Nutrition labelling on food products represents an important tool for promoting healthy eating in consumers, and to guarantee transparency and clarity on products' characteristics. In an ideal scenario, consumers' better understanding and subsequently better compliance to nutritional facts would result in healthier choices, which could lead to an improved diet and to a reduction in disease-related risk factors. Research is necessary not only in assessing consumers' preferences towards different labels formats, but also to evaluate their ability to process food labels and their disposition towards new regulations concerning labelling. In our study, an ad-hoc survey was conducted to assess general knowledge and use of different labels and nutrition fact information in a Chilean sample (n= 1280), which was interviewed through a phone survey, performed over a 1-month period, in September 2012. The major part of the interviewees did not habitually read the labels and showed a low interest in paying an additional fee for additional information (89%). The rest was willing to pay an additional fee of the 5%, in order to get information expressed as Kcal per portion in 68% of cases compared to per 100g. Chilean consumers appeared to be interested to nutritional matters and considered nutritional labelling as a proper tool to achieve a healthy lifestyle. Considering the Chilean low knowledge on nutritional labelling, it is necessary to improve nutrition messages and nutrition knowledge among the Chilean population through fast action, especially to help consumers to make health-conscious choices.
Portion size of food and drink products is an important factor when providing nutrition information for food labeling purposes. The present study was conducted in order to understand more about consumer attitudes and understanding of portion size information on food and drink products. An experimental trial was performed on mothers and one of their relative. The participants were asked to prepare two meals (one meant for a child, one for an adult), with ingredients measured only with kitchen tools. Participants were stratified by portion size information in two groups, one with labels bearing the "100 gram" and one with "per portion". Subsequently, every participant was interviewed on the basis of a questionnaire assessing nutritional and portioning knowledge. When measured the total Kcal of prepared meals after the simulation, an increase of calories was recorded in the group of subjects who prepared foods bearing the100g label, although not statistically significant(p =0.842). Portion size use seemed to be a more intuitive way to properly share nutritional information on food label, especially when considering common traditional recipes. Meals responsible appeared to be much more at ease with per portion labeling, when preparing both children's meals and adult ones.
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