Many food labels inaccurate
Approximately 17% fall outside the accepted 20% margin of error.
04/03/05 The nutritional information on some food products is "wildly inaccurate", a consumer magazine has warned.
Looked at 570 nutrients in 70 products and found just 7% exactly matched the quantities on the labels.
Some 17% fell outside the accepted 20% margin of error, including a "kids" pizza with 47% more sugar than stated.
Currently there is no specific law about how accurate the information on food labels should be - they need only show average nutrition values.
These can be worked out in different ways, none of which is 100% reliable.
Lacors, the body that advises trading standards officers about enforcing food laws, says that an error margin of 20% either side of the labelled value was acceptable.
This can be as high as 30% where nutrients make up between 2% and 5% of a food.
