Health experts are melting Nestle's ambitions to turn chocolate into a health food.
In a campaign launched this week, the giant food manufacturer is urging health professionals to "make the switch" from dairy milk to dark chocolate, using data from medical research to highlight the latter's anti-oxidant properties.
The "switch to dark" campaign, which is generic and does not mention the Nestle brand name, features chocolate spilling from a prescription bottle, with the slogan "anti-oxidants never tasted so good".
But the president of Diabetes Australia, Gary Deed, has described the advertising confection as inappropriate. The natural anti-oxidants found in fresh fruit, vegetables, fish and meat were richer in nutrients than the artificial versions found in processed foods, he said.
"Placing something like chocolate as a prime food in a healthy diet sends out a confusing message," Dr Deed said. "Claiming chocolate [to be] a health food suggests it can be a primary source of nutrition, which it clearly is not."
The chairman of the Australian Medical Association's public health committee, John Gullotta, agreed.
"People should be wary of any claims by food manufacturers that a product high in fat and sugar could also be high in health benefits," he said.
"When it comes to snacking, of course fruit and vegetables are a far healthier alternative to a piece of chocolate."
The Nestle campaign couches its health-food claims in the framework of a healthy balanced diet. Amid the findings from at least three research papers examining the anti-oxidant flavones of a variety of foods, are quotes from health professionals using qualifications such as "indulge occasionally".
But Professor Louise Baur, a director of the University of Sydney's NSW Centre for Overweight and Obesity, said what the experts were saying would inevitably be overridden by the advertiser's main message.
"Why can't [the manufacturers] accept that chocolate is a wonderful 'sometimes' food and leave it at that?"
