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Choices Nutrition Logo Essay

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In the January issue of the Journal of the American Dietetic Association, an article was published regarding the impact of nutritional labels on food choices at different Dutch work cafeterias. The purpose of this study was to investigate the differences made to food choices, and if it stimulated consumers to make healthier choices or if customers actually pay attention to the nutritional information in the product.

The Choices nutrition logo is found around European countries in supermarket chains and different locations. This logo is similar to the Smart Choices program, which appears on the front of the pack of certain food items, such as cereal boxes, breads, yogurts, etc. along the United States. Both these logos inform the …show more content…

The menus consisted of one freshly prepared Choices sandwich, one regular sandwich, one Choices soup and a regular soup, aside from the regular products they offered, such as dairy products, beverages and other hot meals. The employees from the cafeterias kitchens were trained to make sure all the items in the selected menus were prepared the exact same way. The prices of these products were the exact same. Other items in the cafeterias offered, such as snacks, fruits, salad bar, etc, were not included in the study since said products did not comply with the Choices criteria. A three-week menu cycle was created and rotated three times to fulfill the nine-week period. Also, menus explaining the meaning of the Choices logo were available to focus the employee’s attention to the products offered, intended to make the employees to make healthier choices. The control cafeterias did not use any logo or provide any other type of information on the products from the study menu.

Aside from the collection of the data regarding the sales on Choices products and other non-Choices products offered in the menu, information was also collected from other foods offered in the cafeterias, such as the sales on fried foods, fresh fruit (included as Choices menu item) and salads to see if the intervention of the Choices labeling had any effect on the sales of these other products.

To see if the intervention of the labeling in the

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