Health Star Ratings and fast food

Since 2014 food manufacturers and suppliers have been voluntarily implementing the Health Star Rating system enabling consumers to meaningfully compare similar products. Now The George Institute for Global Health is recommending these ratings be extended to fast foods.

To investigate the practicability of this, researchers from The George Institute and Cancer Council NSW examined Health Star Ratings (HSR) across 16 fast food categories, including pastries, pizza, burgers, sandwiches and ice-creams. 1500 products from 13 mainstream chains were examined and the results published in the journal Appetite.

Under the HSR system, foods are given a star rating out of five, based on their nutritional profile including:

• energy content;
• risk nutrients — saturated fat, sodium (salt) and sugars;
• positive nutrients — dietary fibre, protein and the proportion of fruit, vegetable, nut and legume content.

The average HSR for fast foods was just 2.5. Subway and Oporto performed the best with an average HSR of 3.4 across their menus. The worst-performing chain was Gloria Jean’s, which had the lowest average HSR (2.0 stars) followed by McCafé (2.1 stars) and Muffin Break (2.2 stars).

While kilojoule labelling is in place in large chain restaurants across much of Australia, this does not give as much information as the HSR as only the energy content is disclosed. If HSR labelling was in place consumers could easily ascertain more information on the full nutritional make-up of products.

42% of all products assigned 0.5 stars (the lowest possible rating) came from Muffin Break — including its affogato drink, Anzac biscuit and chocolate mousse cake.

Desserts performed badly across the board with an average 0.5 star rating. The results also revealed that cafe-style chains had lower average HSRs than burger and pizza chains. Chicken and sandwich chains fared the best.