Food can be split into two broad categories: (1) Green vegetables and fruit which nutritionists recommended we have a minimum daily intake of. And (2) Foodstuffs high in fats, sugar and salt where we should moderate our daily intake.

These recommendations could be quantified in two numbers called say Health Units and Moderation Units, with a healthy adult male diet being one that was based on a minimum of 10 Health Units and a maximum of 10 Moderation Units. The food industry would be encouraged to label its products to advise purchasers on their Health and Moderation Unit ratings.

The 10 health units would replace the current rather vague advice that for a healthy diet people should eat five portions of fresh fruit and vegetables each day.

Calculation of Moderation Units

If you are in a hurry, you may wish to skip the calculations in this section and move straight on to What does this mean to the consumer? below.

Here are some simple examples of how the new system could work, based on MAFF guidelines for "average" adult diets published in 1996.

Recommended maximum daily intake

                Food type          Male     Female

Let's assume that dieticians decide to aggregate the adult male intake together as 10 Moderation Units with 2 units being allocated to saturated fats, 2 units for other fats and 3 units each for sugars and salt. The recommended adult male intake of these foods can then be reworked as follows:

                    In grams          In Mod. Units  Giving grams in one unit

Saturated fats     30 g                2              15

Other fats           65 g                2              32.5

Sugars                70 g                3              23.3

Salt                   2.5 g                3               0.83

Plugging these values for the number of grams/unit into the recommended female intake gives the following:

                     In grams          In Moderation Units

Saturated fats     20 g               1.33

Other fats           50 g               1.54

Sugars                50 g               2.15

Salt                   2.0 g               0.83

                                      Total 7.4 Moderation Units

What does this mean to the consumer? If the current dietary advice for men on eating fats, sugars and salt is summed up in one number as, “Don’t eat more than 10 Moderation Units”, then the corresponding recommendation for women works out at 7.4 Moderation Units. In a similar way to that shown above, dieticians can work out the recommended intake for children and also fine tune the numbers to take into account body type and lifestyle. All the consumer needs to remember is one simple number, which sums up their personal moderate eating requirements.

Consumers also need to be aware of the importance of eating a balanced diet. With reference to the Moderation Units, this information could be supplied on products in the form of a pie chart, showing the balance of fats, sugars and salt in the product.

Examples: Taking the nutritional information supplied on some popular snack foods, the Moderation Unit information could be presented as:

                         Kelloggs Nutri Grain Bar

2.2 Moderation Units

                         Pot of Pot Noodles

1.9 Moderation Units

                         Small tin of Pringles crisps

2.3 Moderation Units

8 ounce bag of wine gums

2.7 Moderation Units

Labelling of packaged meals & food on restaurant menus A simple label such as 2.5M/1.3H could be added to an item on a menu worth 2.5 Moderation Units and 1.3 Health Units. Customers wanting to eat well but also look after their health would tend to choose items having low Moderation Unit and high Health Unit values.

Discussion It will only require a small percentage of consumers to change their brand loyalty in favour of higher Health Unit, lower Moderation Unit foods, to shift the profitability into healthy foods. So market forces will oblige manufacturers to compete in offering healthier products to the benefit of us all, including those of us who don't bother to read the product labels.

Doing the sums The calculations required to produce the pie charts and Health and Moderation Unit values of recipes could be done very quickly using a computer. Anyone creating a new food product for commercial production or for publication as a recipe would simply need to enter a few facts about the ingredients used and the cooking method to generate the unit values per portion.