The compulsory labeling of any thing that goes into the body has been very effective as a means of consumer education and conveying the nature of the contents in an unambiguous manner. Different countries follow different rules but packed food materials always have information negative as well as positive which enable the consumers to make a correct decision in choosing the right products from the retail shelves. It is another matter that lot of unsubstantiated health claims are made on such labels by some manufacturers. Normally all foods made in the organized sector of food industry can be expected to be safe and of good quality, conforming to the specifications laid down in the statute book. While food and medicines are covered under statutory labeling rules, alcoholic beverages belong to a group that is not required to conform to such rules but demands are emerging to cover these products also. Few countries have introduced such labeling regulations though most such practices are voluntary, agreed upon by the industry on its own volition. Considering that alcohol is more a drug than a beverage, the declaration must be clear regarding the negative consequences of consuming alcohol. Besides its debilitating impact on liver, alcohol is also considered a human carcinogen deserving utmost caution by the consumers. Australia is currently debating on this issue and in what form the ultimate decision will come is not certain as of now.
In Australia, as in many other countries, alcohol is not labelled in the same way that food is. So it's exempt from the usual requirements for anything else you take into your body, which are required to have labels listing all ingredients and composition from a nutritional viewpoint. That's a peculiarity that has come out of history but it doesn't make sense because you are taking in calories or kilojoules into your body when you drink. In recent weeks, DrinkWise, which is an industry-funded social aspects organization, has come out with voluntary standards on labelling, which they hope 80% of the industry will follow. And yesterday the Alcohol Education and Rehabilitation Foundation (AERF)released a report calling for a Government-imposed health warning label system. Their proposed label is much more detailed and much more rigorous than what is currently being implemented by the industry under the DrinkWise initiative. The AERF recommends rotating five warning labels because one of the problems with warning labels is that you get very used to it after a while – as you do with anything else you see every day – and you don't notice them. If you change the message periodically and if there are a variety of messages being displayed, then people are much more likely to notice them and go on noticing them. The main precedents for this kind of labelling is on cigarette packaging but there is another example for alcohol warning labels in Sweden. Every advertisement for alcohol in Swedish newspapers has to dedicate an eighth of its area to a health message. And there are 11 warning messages to choose from, put forward by the Swedish public health institute.
While on the issue of labeling, it is amusing to see bottled water manufacturers faithfully declaring on the label zero values for all the nutrients. Since water is not a nutrient as per the definition, there is no need for pure water to be labeled highlighting its nutrient contents. But when it comes to alcohol more than the nutrition, the label has to convey in no uncertain terms the ill effects of consuming alcohol on human body. Though some believe moderate dose of alcohol is good for health, jury is still out on this claim and drinking being an addiction, it is better to be a teetotaler until such times conclusive proof is on the table regarding its absolute safety. As in the case of smoking, alcohol beverages must carry danger warning leaving the choice to the consumer as to how much risk one can take while taking alcohol.
