EVALUATION OF FOOD LABELS ON JAPANESE CUISINE

The Brazilian Agency of Health Oversight (ANVISA) mandated nutrition labeling on packaged foods in RDC resolutions number 39, 40, and 360, because nutritional information about the composition of food is important for consumer's health. The objective of this study was to evaluate the nutritional contents of the information issued on the labels of Japanese cuisine available in commercial establishments of a Japanese community in Sao Paulo. The four Japanese foods sold in Sao Paulo that were chosen included tikuwa, manju, tofu, and miso, totaling six samples. The nutritional contents of food packaging were analyzed in an indirect way, using conventional tables for food's nutritional composition of Japanese food developed by researchers at Sao Paulo University (USP) in accordance with the resolutions of ANVISA RDC n degrees 39, 40, and 360. The results demonstrated that 100% of the labels analyzed were not in accordance with the resolution of ANVISA RDC number 360. The range was from 10 to 93% for proteins, 17 to 157 % for carbohydrates, and 110 to 136% for total fat, which in the case of energy, leads to a wide variation in nutrients for the energetic value of products. Therefore, there is a large disparity between what labels state and what is found in food composition tables.