Introduction: Food additives (AA) are ingredients that are added to foods to modify their physical and chemical characteristics. Approximately 1,000 AA are used under the “Generally Recognized as Safe” designation without approval from the US Food and Drug Administration. There is evidence that some AA can be potentially toxic to health. The person in charge of regulating AA worldwide is the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations and the World Health Organization, through the Codex Alimentarius Commission. However, in Mexico there are no studies on the toxicity of AA in the population, given the impossibility of estimating its consumption taking the “Admissible Daily Intake” as a reference (IDA).
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Article – Sugar in ultraprocessed foods in Latin American capitals: From dentistry perspective
Introduction
High sugar consumption is associated with dental caries. The objective of this study was to determine the concentrations of sugar and other nutrients in sweetened, ultraprocessed foods from Bogotá, Lima, and Quito.
Methods
A descriptive study was conducted in which information was collected on the concentration of total sugars and other nutrients from a nutrition table of ultraprocessed foods with a sweet taste from the primary chain supermarkets in Bogotá, Lima, and Quito. The groups of registered foods were non-carbonated and carbonated drinks, nectar and fruit juices, fermented dairy products, other milk-based drinks, compotes, breakfast cereals, bakery products, confectionery, desserts, dried fruits and nut candies, and flavored powder. Descriptive analyses were conducted to determine the measures of central tendency.
Results
In the present study, information was collected on 1830 products. A median total sugar content of 11.0 (7.0–17.0) grams/portion was identified in sweetened foods from Bogotá, while the median was 10.3 (6.0–14.7) in Lima and 9.0 (5.0–15.00) in Quito. Approximately 80% of foods from Bogotá and approximately 70% of foods from Lima and Quito exceed the maximum sugar concentration established in the resolutions passed by each country, which state the parameters and ranges to determine whether food is high in sugar. In addition, most of the registered foods in this study have a nonexistent or extremely low content of fiber, proteins, vitamins, and minerals.
Conclusions
A high percentage of foods with high sugar concentrations were found in Bogotá, Lima, and Quito, contributing to the risk of dental caries. This highlights the importance of odontologists educating patients on the proper selection of foods.
Article – Employment and wage effects of sugar-sweetened beverage taxes and front-of-package warning label regulations on the food and beverage industry: Evidence from Peru
Peru increased its sugar-sweetened beverage tax by 8 percentage points (from 17% to 25%) in 2018 and in 2019 imposed front-of-package warning labels on processed and ultra-processed foods and beverages high in sugar, saturated fats, and sodium or containing trans fats. We assess the pre-COVID-19 impacts of these two policies on aggregate formal employment and average wages in the food and beverage industry. In the analysis we use monthly administrative data from the Ministry of Labor in Peru for 127 manufacturing industries from January 2016 through February 2020 and pair an interrupted time series analysis with the synthetic control method. Overall we find that the sugar-sweetened beverage tax increase and the front-of-package label regulations did not result in job or wage losses. These results are consistent with outcomes from previous studies that have separately looked at the effects of sugar-sweetened beverage taxes (in the United States and Mexico) and front-of-package label regulations (in Chile). Our key contribution is that we assess the effects of both policies for the same country. Consistent with the global literature, our findings suggest that, due to industry substitutions and other actions, employment and wages were not impacted even in industries affected by both policies in a short time. The lack of job and wage losses in the Peruvian experience, the scope of the country’s policies, and the form of implementation can advise other countries engaging in similar reforms.
Article – How Brazilian Schoolchildren Identify, Classify, and Label Foods and Beverages—A Card Sorting Methodology
This study examined how Brazilian schoolchildren identified, classified, and labeled foods and beverages. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 133 schoolchildren aged 7 to 10 years old from a public school located in southern Brazil in 2015. A set of cards with pictures of 32 food and beverage items from the web-based Food Intake and Physical Activity of Schoolchildren tool (Web-CAAFE) were used. Participants identified each item, formed groups for them based on similarity, and assigned labels for those groups. Student’s t-tests and analysis of variance (ANOVA) tests were used to verify the mean difference between the groups of items. K-means cluster analysis was applied to identify similar clusters. Schoolchildren made an average of 9.1 piles of foods and beverages that they thought were similar (±2.4) with 3.0 cards (±1.8) each. Five groups were identified: meats, snacks and pasta, sweets, milk and dairy products, and fruits and vegetables. The most frequently used nomenclature for labeling groups was taxonomic-professional (47.4%), followed by the specific food item name (16.4%), do not know/not sure (13.3%), and evaluative (health perception) (8.8%). The taxonomic-professional category could be applied to promote improvements in the identification process of food and beverage items by children in self-reported computerized dietary questionnaires.
Article – The influence of Chile’s food labelingand advertising law and other factors on dietaryand physical activity behavior of elementarystudents in a peripheral region: a qualitative study
In 2016, Chile implemented the Food Labeling and Advertising Law to fight childhood obesity through front-of-package food labelling, marketing restrictions and school activities and programs. Nevertheless, little is known on its influence on key stakeholders in vulnerable peripheral regions of the country. This study aimed at identifying important influencing factors including the Food Labeling and Advertising Law on dietary habits and physical activity patterns of second graders in Chile, as perceived by school representatives and the children themselves.
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