Reading labels, "the first step for human health"

Romanians know little about their rights as consumers and they believe that most of products on market are unsafe.

Starting Tuesday, people dissatisfied with certain services or products may find their rights, in the country but also in community area, due to a campaign launched by the European Commission.

The campaign is necessary, are saying its initiators, given that deceived customers rarely address to authorities.

However, according to a Euro barometer survey, eight out of ten Romanians want to know more about what they should do when they want to return a product bought from the Internet and approximately the same number of Romanians want to learn about conditions for bank loans.

However, people need to be informed when they buy food, says the director of the Food Research Institute, Gheorghe Mencinicopschi.

Few people are accustomed to read food labels and in this field, Romanians are not an exception.

Even nowadays, the price remains the only criteria at shopping.

People have the right to know what restaurants products contain

According to the Food Research Institute Director, Gheorghe Mencinicopschi, reading the labels is the first step for consumer health.

"On the compositional label we must always find all the ingredients, food additives or flavouring, in decreasing order of their quantity.”

We should read the allergen label - for example, the product contains gluten, eggs or peanuts - because there are many people suffering from intolerance and food allergies and which, specifically, should avoid eating those products.

"Also, some products have nutrition labels, where we should find information about protein, whether animal or vegetable, what kind of carbohydrates it contains, if there is fibre, if it has slow sugars or the quantities of vitamins and minerals that product contains and also we need to know the place where the food comes from and its term of validity." said Gheorghe Mencinicopschi.

The doctor Mencinicopschi notes that all these European regulations are also valid for unpackaged food and even for recipes used in restaurants.

"If I go to a window shop and I want buy a sausage, but it has no compositional label, meat, E's, fat, etc., it is a violation of consumer rights and a law violation.

"At the restaurant is our right to know what kind of food contains and as well, even when we buy a bagel or a donut, the manufacturer is required to write the composition of the bagel or donut for us to know, to be an informed choice", said the director of the Food Research Institute.

The Professor Doctor Gheorghe Mencinicopschi advised that if we meet at least three substance names on the label of a product, whose meaning we don't known, we should think better before consuming that product, to seek their definition and decide the acquisition only on an informed basis.

Translated by Ioana Vioreanu
MTTLC, Bucharest University