Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I want to go back to the nutrition facts that you see on the backs of all these different cans and labels. They're all over the place. I find it all exceptionally complicated. It's interesting that someone made reference to studies showing that 30% of people use the label. I'm one of those 30%, I suspect, but I use only a portion of it. I understand the concept of calories, and I know basically what it means when it says sodium and it reads something like 35 mgs. Still, I don't think there's much value for 90% of the consumers. We have to look at ways of changing it.
Mr. Murphy made reference to the potato chip. When a Froot Loops box says a “serving”, it would make a lot more sense if it stated the 1,500 or whatever number of calories the box contains. If that box lasts a week, I'd have a better sense of what it is. If you're talking about sodium, maybe there could be brackets where you could indicate the daily recommended requirement.
All I know is that the nutritional facts are there, but from my perspective we aren't doing nearly as good a job as people think we are. It needs to be much more consumer-friendly. At the end of the day, I'm not sure if this green light-red light from Europe is the best answer. I think the nutrition facts have some potential, but there have to be people thinking outside the box or sitting down in focus groups. These should be people who do not necessarily understand what healthy eating is, but who are interested in trying to get a better understanding.
A year ago, my daughter said I should stop drinking Coke, because I drink a lot of it. She was concerned about the calories. She said I should try Diet Coke, because it has no calories. Well, it makes sense, so I started drinking Diet Coke. I don't like the taste all that much, but I do it because my daughter asked me to. Then someone told me the diet stuff has something else in it that is not healthy, and it's something regarding cancer, so now it's a 50:50 mix that I'll do if I'm at the Burger King or McDonald's.
Information comes at you in different ways. I think we need the professionals—the dieticians, the industry reps—to come forward to say, “Look, here is something we know will work better, because we've sat down with groups and it makes sense to the average consumer”. We need consumer-friendly listings, nutrition facts, or the lights or something.
All I know is that the current system isn't working.