Analysis of Food Labels to Evaluate the Nutritional Quality of Bread Products and Substitutes Sold in Italy: Results from the Food Labelling of Italian Products (FLIP) Study

Abstract

Bread is one of the most common staple foods, despite the increasing consumption of the so-called “bread substitutes”. The aim of the present work is to survey the nutritional quality intended as a nutrition declaration of 339 pre-packed bread products and 1020 bread substitutes sold in the major retailers present on the Italian market. Comparisons of energy, macronutrient, and salt content within product types, and between regular and gluten-free (GF) products and products with or without nutrition claim (NC) and health claim (HC) declarations, were performed. A high inter-product variability was detected. The median energy contents were 274 (interquartile range 255–289) and 412 (380–437) kcal/100 for bread products and substitutes, respectively. Irrespective of the category, GF products had lower amounts of energy than their gluten-containing counterpart (p < 0.001), whereas products carrying NC had lower energy, sugar and salt amounts than the products without these declarations on the pack (p < 0.001 for all). A strong positive correlation was observed between energy and carbohydrate in bread (rho = 0.73, p < 0.001), but not in substitutes (rho = 0.033, p = 0.29). The present work highlighted a high variability in the apparent nutritional quality of bread products and substitutes sold on the Italian market, and suggested that bread alternatives should not be considered tout court as substitutes from a nutritional point of view.

Comparison of the Nutritional Quality of Branded and Private-Label Food Products Sold in Italy: Focus on the Cereal-Based Products Collected From the Food Labeling of Italian Products Study

“…Despite some differences among categories, this supports the theories of a net discrepancy from the perceived whole quality-nutritional, technological, and hedonistic-and effective food quality of PL foods (22), mainly driven from the perception that a branded product, higher in price, is of better quality than PL (23). Thus, as already hypothesized in the past FLIP studies (12)(13)(14)(15)(16)(17), further efforts should be performed to educate consumers in reading and understanding food labels and all available information. These findings could be useful in nutrition education activities aimed to help consumers in making informed food choices and, in turn, improve their life quality.…”

“…Based on the brand, the food items were classified into (i) privatelabel foods for products branded by the supermarket and (ii) branded foods for food items produced by food manufacturers and labeled with their own brand. Based on the descriptive name, food items were further divided into the following categories and into related types, as previously reported (12,13,(15)(16)(17): (i) breakfast cereals (cereal bars, muesli, flakes, bran cereals, puffed cereals, and others), (ii) biscuits (tea cookies, shortbread biscuits, cream-filled wafer, covered and/or sandwich cookies, Italian traditional biscuits, and other biscuits), (iii) sweet snacks and cakes (cream-filled sponge cake, plain or cream/jam-filled croissant or "pain au chocolat, " yogurt plumcake and muffin, sponge cake, cream/jam-filled shortbread cake, cream-filled and/or covered chilled snack), (iv) bread (loaf, rolls and sliced bread), (v) bread substitutes (rusks, wraps, rice and corn cakes, crackers, breadsticks, "croutons, bruschetta, and frisella bread, " and taralli), (vi) fresh pasta (semolina, egg, stuffed pasta), and (vii) dried pasta (semolina, egg, stuffed, special pasta).…”

“…Based on these premises, the aim of the present study was to compare energy and nutrient contents of BR and PL cereal-based foods currently sold in Italy, by evaluating the nutritional declaration reported on the food pack. This work is part of the Food Labeling of Italian Products (FLIP), conceived by the Working Group SINU (Italian Society of Human Nutrition) Young with the purpose of systematically evaluating the nutritional quality of the different food categories sold on the Italian market (12)(13)(14)(15)(16)(17) and of elucidating whether specific information related to the food pack can be considered markers of overall nutritional quality.…”

Adherence to Dietary Recommendations of 7-Year-Old Children from a Birth Cohort in Friuli Venezia Giulia, Italy

“…In addtion, 65% of our enrolled children had a sodium intake above the SDT [ 38 ], without any other possible comparisons except for Verduci et al [ 34 ], where 9% of children were above the SDT, in line with their lower median intake. Major food sources included “Cereal and cereal-based products” (34.4%), followed by “Herbs, spices and added salt” (14.1%), probably due to an increased frequency of consumption of bread substitutes [ 57 ] and ready-to-eat products [ 58 , 59 ], which are rich in salt [ 48 ]. The “Sweets and salty snacks” food group provided a nonnegligible contribution (8.9%) to sodium intake, with sweets accounting for 92.9% of the food group contribution.…”

Nutritional Quality of Wholegrain Cereal-Based Products Sold on the Italian Market: Data from the FLIP Study

“…Data were collected from the online surveys conducted in previous studies of the same project [24][25][26] and updated in June 2021. Prepacked cereal-based products considered in the present study were selected from the major Italian retailers on a home-shopping website (Bennet, Carrefour, Conad, Coop Italia, Crai, Despar, Esselunga, Il Gigante, Iper, Pam Panorama, Selex, Sidis).…”