Australia’s largest consumer advocacy group, CHOICE, is proposing a change to the algorithm used to score food products, penalising ‘added sugars’ that are not naturally found in foods.
When the alternative algorithm is applied to more than a dozen products, Health Star ratings of cereals like Nutri Grain, Uncle Toby’s Plus Protein and Milo, drop from four out of five stars to just one-and-a-half stars.
CHOICE policy and campaigns adviser Linda Przhedtesky says the current system does not distinguish between the extra sugar added to foods and the naturally occurring sugars.