France @jlai.lu Snoopy @jlai.lu 11mo ago

Nutri-Score : son efficacité est prouvée, sauf en cas de conflit d’intérêts

theconversation.com Nutri-Score : son efficacité est prouvée, sauf en cas de conflit d’intérêts

Le Nutri-Score, qui vise à mieux informer les consommateurs, est régulièrement attaqué. De nouveaux travaux démontrent que les études qui lui sont défavorables font souvent l’objet de conflits d’intérêts.

Ils révèlent surtout qu’une étude portant sur le Nutri-Score a 21 fois plus de chances d’aboutir à des résultats défavorables pour ce logo nutritionnel si les auteurs déclarent un conflit d’intérêts, ou si l’étude est financée par l’industrie alimentaire…

Ces travaux indiquent une nouvelle fois que certaines études impliquant des acteurs industriels de l’agroalimentaire vont en général dans le sens des positions ou défenses des intérêts des financeurs. Ce biais de financement avait déjà été décrit dans plusieurs travaux antérieurs.

Pour conclure, rappelons que les scientifiques et professionnels de santé, notamment au travers des sociétés savantes scientifiques et comités d’experts en France et en Europe, ainsi que de nombreuses institutions de recherche et de santé publique (comme le Centre International de Recherche contre le Cancer de l’Organisation mondiale de la santé) considèrent que le Nutri-Score s’appuie sur des travaux scientifiques suffisamment robustes - tant dans sa construction que dans la démonstration de son efficacité et de son utilité en termes de santé publique - pour justifier qu’il soit rendu obligatoire en Europe.

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English because even though I can understand the post, my French is not nearly good enough to articulate this point

I'm Italian, as you might now we are the only big EU country to have opposed Nutri-Score thus far.

This summer I spent my holidays in the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region and while shopping there I got the chance of interacting firsthand with the score, as someone not used to it.
In many occasions looking at the score and then at the ingredient list made very little sense, in particular some decently healthy food was often marked with harsh scores for reasons I couldn't quite understand. An example of this I remember quite well was a bottle of fruit juice that had a score of D. Sure, it probably has lots of sugar, but it also contained decent quantities of fruits. I thought that was supposed to be a good thing.

I don't think this score is the way to go, honestly. I'm a big fan of the work the EU is doing in terms of food safety but this just isn't the right way to go in my opinion. The indicator is way too simplistic and while the algorithm behind it is pretty clear, sometimes you end up with weird results that to me make very little sense.
- Hi and welcome :)
  
  Well, eating fruit isn't always healthy. It all about glucide, salt... Do you know how many oranges do you need for 1 glass of 20 cl ? 4 oranges, that's a lot. So 2 glass of orange is as you are eating 8 oranges in a row. That's a crazy amount of sugar and we don't alway realize that
  
  Yeah i agree, the nutriscore need better explanation and transparency about the result.
  
  The process of turning fruit into juice also often removes a lot of the good stuff we would be getting from that fruit. For example fibre. So the juice has the sugar (which isn’t in itself a reason to avoid fresh fruit) but little of the other good stuff.
- The usecase of NutriScore definitly needs to be explained. I thought it was ridiculous until I read a small brochure about it. NutriScore is a comparation tool :
  
  Hesitating btw 2 brand ? NutriScore
  
  Hesitating btw 2 premade meals ? NutriScore
  
  Hesitating btw Nutella and Jam ? NutriScore
  
  Hesitating btw having cheese or dessert this evening ? NutriScore
  
  It's about comparing at first glance 2 items of food that could be interchangeable in your current situation.
  
  Still it's not perfect. For example butter has a worst NutriScore than margarine bc margarine has l'ESS fat but butter fat is of better quality and I'm not sure less fat should be considered better when shopping for fat.
  
  Huh interesting point. I suppose my view of it was closer to "Should I eat X? Probably not, NutriScore says it's bad" and that's where my disagreement came from. Your logic actually gives it much more sense.
  
  Wonder how many people drew the same conclusions as me when looking at it for the first time. First psichological impact is important.
- In your case, fruit juice is like taking everything good out of the fruit - flesh, fibers - and only keeping the bad stuff in. Even vitamins are at a lower rate in juice than in the fruit itself and most are lost while the juice is waiting on shelf.
  
  You are way better off with a fruit and a glass if water.
- Your story is actually a great example of why Nutriscore is important. It showed you with a single letter that something you thought was good for you, is not.
  
  Most people are uneducated when it comes to the nutritional value of food, and it can be very hard to compare similar food products. We added nutritional details on packages years ago, with little to no effect. The positive effects of the nutriscore were seen in the first year (better buying practices from buyers, brand adapting food content to get better grades, ...)

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