The GDA system

The GDA system has been created by a group made up from members of the UK food industry. That group includes all the major supermarket chains (although some of these are in the FSA camp for the ongoing debate), household names like Heinz, Nestle, Coca-Cola, Unilever, Proctor & Gamble and other supply chain companies like packaging firms and logistics companies.

The Guideline Daily Amount or GDA system is often used by them in place of the FSA’s traffic light system. This group says that the traffic lights are too simplistic and that people may avoid all red foods without fully understanding what nutritional impact that choice brings. It's true that there are foods which can form part of a healthy and nutritious diet which will attract a red score on the FSA traffic light system. Although it is also true that many foods which attract a red score from the FSA fully deserve that warning and should not form part of a healthy diet.

The GDA shows how much of each major nutrient is present in a typical serving of the food and also what percentage of the guideline daily amount that represents. The GDA values which form the basis of this calculation themselves refer to a typical female adult who is in good health and of normal weight. This average individual requires 2,000 calories per day to maintain her weight. You could think of her as a woman who is 5' 3" tall and weighs 9 st and 9 lbs.

GDA's do exist for men but will only appear if label space permits it. It is recommended that the lower values for women are used so that errors are more likely to occur of the under-eating type than over-eating. And GDA's exist for children too but are more likely to be used as an aid for residential childcare staff than on food packaging.

The group who are backing this system in opposition to the more popular FSA traffic light system claim that it allows consumers to make their own judgements about food. Like the FSA traffic lights it too is printed on the front of the packaging and offers consumers a snap shot of the nutritional panel data which is printed elsewhere on the product. The fact that someone feels the need, as you can see in the example above, to print an explanation beside a supposedly self-explanatory label does make you wonder.

To avoid futher confusion in this explanation none of the examples shown are colour coded. But manufacturers are increasingly making this label style in multiple colours. It is common, when it suits the manufacturer, for the kcal or calories value to be coloured even though this is not recommended by the FSA. So it is not totally clear at this point if they are using the FSA'a definition of green, amber and red either. Let's hope, for everyone's good health, that they pull their act together soon and start putting the interests of their customers first.