The traffic light food labels are a nutritional con – and we’re all falling for it
18 June 2025, 07:54
Insights have revealed that the beloved traffic light nutritional labelling system is nothing more than a marketing gimmick and could be actively harming consumers' understanding of healthy eating.
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During Health Result's January 2024 nutrition experiment, a telling discrepancy lays bare the system's fundamental flaw. While cereal boxes proudly display portion sizes of 30g, we found the average adult actually consumes a whopping 69g per serving - more than double the recommended amount.
This means those seemingly innocent green and amber lights quickly turn a menacing red when real-world consumption is considered.
But the deception runs deeper than portion sizes. The traffic light system, which the Food Standards Agency claims to guide consumers towards healthier choices, is actually a masterclass in nutritional misdirection.
By fixating on outdated nutritional villains like saturated fat and salt, it fundamentally misunderstands what constitutes genuine nutrition.
The system is entirely optional. Manufacturers only use it when it serves their marketing purposes. You'll even find these 'healthy' labels on a can of Diet Coke, which somehow sports all green lights.
Modern nutritional science now recognises that not all fats are created equal. The key distinction isn't between saturated and unsaturated, but between natural and processed fats.
Those industrially produced seed oils - often marketed as 'healthy alternatives' - are far more harmful than traditional, natural saturated fats.
Similarly, salt has been unfairly demonised. While it's important to note that individuals with high blood pressure or specific health conditions may need to monitor their salt intake, for most people, salt is crucial for numerous bodily functions, including hormone production and nutrient absorption. The blanket condemnation ignores the nuanced reality of human nutrition.
Our observations suggest the traffic light system is less about consumer health and more about creating an illusion of informed choice. It's a nutritional roundabout that keeps consumers spinning without ever providing genuine guidance.
For those truly seeking to understand their food, I recommend a back-to-basics approach: real food should look like food. Fish should look like fish, not a perfectly rectangular fishfinger.
Chicken should be recognisable as chicken, not some mysteriously shaped nugget. Vegetables should resemble the plants they came from, not be transformed into unrecognisable crisps that barely resemble their original form.
Ignore the flashy colours and marketing spin. Instead, focus on whole, unprocessed foods and understand how different ingredients truly interact with your body's metabolic systems.
The mere presence of a traffic light system should be a red flag in itself. When a food requires such elaborate packaging and nutritional gymnastics to appear healthy, it's a sign that what you're holding isn't real food at all.
To succeed tackling the UK’s obesity crisis, we should scrap the deceptive traffic light system.
The government should focus more on prevention rather than prescription, promoting healthier diets like the fibre-first diet, and educate our children about the nasties of ultra-processed foods.
This will help protect our children for generations to come, place less burden on the NHS and prevent Brits from simply relying on weight-loss injections.
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Steve Bennett is a PCI-Qualified Health Coach, author, and patron of the Public Health Collaboration, working with the House of Lords to combat the UK’s obesity crisis through food policy reform and public education.
LBC Opinion provides a platform for diverse opinions on current affairs and matters of public interest.
The views expressed are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official LBC position.
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