Nutritional and non-nutritional content in food: targets for front-to-package labels

A global shift from traditional to “Westernized” dietary patterns is being considered responsible for the substantial worsening of global diets and the consequent impact on human health. The need for easily accessible, palatable, and affordable food has driven an industry-led globalization of the markets with products easily available worldwide often at cost of nutritional quality, with evidence of substantial substitution of local food production/consumption. A growingly large share of commercial food products are dangerously high in added sugar, starch and/or fat and poor in vitamins and fiber. Additional concerns also rely on the poorly investigated role of food chemical additives on human health, with substantial documented effects on human gut microbiota and potential threats for long term exposure. Given the poor nutritional profile, the unknown effects of industrial additives, and the “substitution effect” for healthy foods, the consumption of industrially processed foods is of great interest for public health experts because the massive market invasion and the potential global impact on the general population. More importantly, foods quality and level of processing is currently not of concern for nutritional guidelines while it started being questioned for its role on general public health.