Consumers are in favor of adopting food warning labels in the country.

Arvee Gonzales, a BPO worker, said when a snack is intensely sweet or salty, she no longer buys it.

“If I want to buy something then I remember that it tastes too sweet or too salty, I no longer buy it,” Gonzales told the DAILY TRIBUNE.

Apart from a snack’s price, Gonzales said she also considers its nutrition facts label to help her decide on what to buy.

“Sometimes I peek and compare the nutrition facts of snacks. But it’s hard because I often forget how much saltiness or sweetness is too much,” she said.

“So what happens, I get two snacks and compare them with each other which has a lower count of sodium or sugar,” she added.

Gonzales said having food warning labels for pre-packaged and ultra-processed food and beverage products would help her decide on what food to buy as it would remind her if a food is “too salty.”

“I think the warning labels would help both the manufacturers and the consumers. For the consumers, it would give them a better idea on a food’s nutritional content so they could easily decide if they would get that item or not,” she said.

“For the manufacturers, if the sales of their food item go low because the consumers found out that their food is high in fat/sugar/salt, maybe they could be convinced to produce healthier food items,” she added.

Meanwhile, Nadia de Leon said when buying a snack for her 13-year-old son, she ensures that they are not too sweet and too salty.

De Leon also admitted that they carefully choose the snacks they buy.

“The first time we buy it, we look at the nutritional table on the label to find out the sugar and sodium level per serving. We became more careful about the snacks we buy when my husband got sick,” she told the DAILY TRIBUNE.

If food warning labels get implemented, De Leon said she will think twice on what snacks to buy, especially if they are high on sugar and sodium.

De Leon said she also thinks it would change her buying behavior.

“I won’t just buy the snacks we’re used to at home,” she said.

“It would help me choose healthier snacks for our family. Avoid too sweet and salty snacks,” she added.

In a Social Weather Stations poll in July, it found that 66 percent of Filipinos are supportive of a policy that will implement food warning labels for pre-packaged and ultra-processed food and beverage products.

Out of this 66 percent, 39 percent expressed strong support for such a measure.

Food warning labels directly identify which products have high or excessive amounts of sodium, sugar and saturated fats that can be harmful to health.

Some Latin American countries, including Puerto Rico, Chile and Mexico are implementing this measure.

Senate Bill 2700 or the Healthy Food Marketing Environment Act was filed in the upper chamber earlier this year.

The bill has been pending in the Health and Demography Committee since then.

Its counterpart version in the House of Representatives has yet to be scheduled for a hearing in the Trade and Industry Committee.