7 questions on food labelling

Food Label Quiz

Do you know how healthy the food you buy is? What with RDAs and GDAs, weights, volumes and values all over the packet, it's not easy. Shoppers need one, clear system said a study on Wednesday for the Food Standards Agency (FSA). So do you know your RDA from your energy values?

Food Label Quiz

The FSA backs the traffic light scheme, which indicates the levels of fat, saturated fat, sugar or salt - things we should be cutting down on. Red means the food has high levels, amber medium and green is low. Try our quiz and see if you can get your head round it. Press NEXT to continue.

1.) Food Label Quiz

A salad, what can be healthier than that? But only one of these M&S salads gets this full set of healthy green lights - which one?

1. Masala chicken salad with spiced indian lentils
   
2. Tuna with three-bean salad, potatoes and red peppers
   
3. King prawn and noodle salad
   

Food Label Quiz

We should all eat a certain amount of fat, sugar and salt each day - this is called our Guideline Daily Allowance (GDA). Some supermarkets, such as Tesco, and food producers use this system to label food rather than the traffic light system. Click HERE to continue.

2.) Food Label Quiz

If a woman ate the dish with this label she would consume almost half her GDA for saturated fat and almost a third for salt - all in just one meal. What is it?

1. Waitrose duck in plum sauce ready meal
   
2. M&S cheese and tomato pizza
   
3. Tesco tuna crunch sandwich filler
   

3.) Food Label Quiz

The salt content in food is often unexpectedly high. So which of these Sainsbury's foods has a red light when it comes to salt?

1. A slice of white bread
   
2. A jam tart
   
3. A 100g dollop of mint sauce
   

4.) Food Label Quiz

Cake may be delicious, but how many red lights do you think a small slice of a Co-op chocolate with this label would get?

1. Two red lights for fat and sugar
   
2. Three red lights for fat, saturated fat and sugar
   
3. Four red lights for fat, saturated fat, sugar and salt
   

5.) Food Label Quiz

Some supermarkets list the level of sodium in food instead of salt - why?

1. It's the same thing, sodium is just another name for salt
   
2. Sodium is not as bad for you as salt
   
3. It's the sodium in salt that can be bad for your health
   

6.) Food Label Quiz

Which of the following sandwiches is the only one to have four green lights for healthy levels of fat, saturated fat, sugar and calories?

1. Boots houmous and chargrilled vegetable wrap
   
2. Co-op tuna and mayo
   
3. M&S wild red salmon and cucumber
   

7.) Food Label Quiz

If something is labeled "lite" or "light" what does it mean?

1. It must be at least 15% lower in at least one typical value
   
2. It must be at least 15% lower in all typical values
   
3. It must be at least 30% lower in at least one typical value
   

Answers

1. It's the masala chicken salad with spiced Indian lentils. The other two have nearly double the amount of salt, earning them an amber light for that category.
2. It's the M&S pizza. The ready meal is only higher in sugar and the sandwich filler is lower in all categories.
3. It's mint sauce, with 2.8g of salt per 100g. There is 0.7g in the same amount of bread, giving it an amber light, and 0.25g in a jam tart, giving it a green light.
4. It gets three red lights for fat, saturated fat and sugar. It gets an amber light for salt.
5. Sodium is a component of salt and is the bit that can be bad for your health. To get the salt content you multiply sodium by 2.5.
6. It's the Boots houmous and chargrilled vegetable wrap, it gets just one amber light for salt content. The Co-op sandwich only has green lights for sugar and salt content and the M&S sandwich has it for calories and salt content.
7. It must be at least 30% lower in at least one typical value, such as salt or fat, says the FSA. The label must also explain exactly what has been reduced and by how much, for example "30% less fat".

Food Label Quiz

0 - 3 : Label lightweight

4 - 6 : Lukewarm

7 - 7 : Label lover

For a complete archive of past quizzes, including the Curriculum tests and our weekly news quiz 7 days 7 questions, visit the Magazine index and scroll down the page.