Indiahas ranked lowest in terms of healthiness of packaged foods according to asurvey conducted by the George Institute for Global Health.
Thesurvey conducted of packaged foods and drinks across the globe showed thatfoods from India are the most energy dense.
TheGeorge Institute for Global Health analyzed over 4,00,000 thousand productsfrom across 12 countries. They were ranked using Australia's Health Star RatingSystem which measures the nutrient levels in each food such as salt, sugar, saturatedfats including protein, calcium and fibre. It then assigns a rating from ½ (leasthealthy) to five (most healthy).
Ithas been found in the survey that packaged foods and drinks from India werealso found to be the most energy-dense and products from South Africa werefound to be the least energy-dense. India got the lowest Health Star rating ofjust 2.27 preceded by China with 2.43.
Accordingto Elizabeth Dunford, the lead author of the study while quoted by Livemintsaid that the results were concerning because packaged foods and drinks aredriving a double burden of diet related diseases in many low and middle-incomecountries. She said, "Globally we all are eating more and more processed foodsand that's a concern because our supermarkets shelves are full of products thatare high in bad fats, sugar and salt and are potentially making us sick."
Shealso said that the results of study show that some countries are doing a betterjob than others. Unfortunately, it's the poorer nations that are least able toaddress the adverse health consequences that have the unhealthiest foods.
