When it comes to soda, Mexico has been commended in the past for featuring genuine sugar in its drinks rather than corn-based alternatives, at least according to rumors up north of the border, as Bloomberg Businessweek has noted.
However, it seems that most food in that country will be inadequately regulated when it comes to sugar, or at least that Mexico’s priorities don’t match those of the greater world community. The Associated Press has noted that newly announced rules for food labels in Mexico seem to be built upon the assumption that a person’s daily sugar consumption should be around twice that established by the World Health Organization.
The WHO advises consumers to avoid consuming more than 25 grams of extra sugar, which translates to 100 calories, but the new labels that Mexico will be employing are geared to a daily sugar content closer to 90 grams. That interferes with the entire formulation of nutrition values, and the AP quoted activist Alejandro Calvillo of Consumer Power on the negative ramifications of these labels.
“This is terrible, because some people are going to see this label … and they’re going to say, ‘well, I’ll drink this Coca Cola, because it is 70 percent of my sugar requirement, and I can drink another 6 ½-ounce one, to get 100 percent of what they recommend I get of sugar,” he said.
It should be easy for any company to take on professional printing that doesn’t create confusion for consumers but still fits in with the general regulations laid out by major organizations. In this case, a company might be able to create food labels that make up for these kinds of changes.
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