Science admonishes US food industry

It is certainly not just a cliché, because even in everyday life clearly overweight Americans are still striking. American scientists are now raising the alarm: too many foods contain too high levels of energy, saturated fatty acids, sugar and salt - also and especially in international comparison and especially in packaged foods. 80 percent of Americans' calories come from groceries and drinks purchased from the supermarket. These highly processed foods played a key role in obesity, diabetes and cardiovascular disease, according to a recent study by the North Western University of Chicago.

You just have to try American ice cream from the supermarket and it tastes the same: a lot greasier and sweeter than, for example, ice creams based on an Italian recipe. What tastes good does not have to be healthy. The scientists now keep this old wisdom before the food industry and ask them to take responsibility and to change recipes. "We need to make producers responsible for continuously documenting what they are doing to stop this development," said study lead author Abigail Baldridge. But politics is also in demand, because the study clearly points out where political action is needed.

71 percent of the food is "ultra-processed", so extremely processed and less natural: bread, salad dressing, SnacksSweets and sugar drinks are among them - with bread and baked goods taking the top spot in terms of energy, saturated fat, sugar and salt content. On average, US bread contains 12 percent more salt than crumbs in the UK. There national strategies would have led to lower the salinity. In the meantime, consumers in the US can become active themselves: with the aid of the "FoodSwitch" app, for example, the scanned barcode provides information about the ingredients and offers a rating "healthy / unhealthy" on a scale from 0,5 to 5.

Friederike Heidenhof, www.bzfe.de