I rarely shop in Sainsbury's but I noticed in the dairy aisle, there is now a milk that in health statistics is between skimmed and semi skimmed which is classed as 1% Fat. I then saw the differences in nutrition amounts between skimmed and 1% Fat and then between semi-skimmed and 1% Fat by looking at their traffic-light pie chart.
Their pie chart only shows the colours Red, Yellow and Green but you could introduce Orange to be between Red & Yellow and maybe Blue could be between Yellow and Green.

The thought later occured to me.
How was it decided that:
Whole Milk is Blue ?
Semi-Skimmed is Green ?
1% Fat is Orange ?
Skimmed is Red ?

Surely the healthier option should be green and the least healthiest option should be red?

Therefore:
Whole Milk should be Red
Semi-Skimmed should be Yellow
1% Fat should be Blue
Skimmed should be Green ?

Will there ever be a day when the Food Standards Agency or whichever organisation decided on the colour coding realises these colours could be misleading and mistaken and they demand for a change in the colour coding of all milk bottles marketed in shops and supermarkets all across the UK?

It would be nice to see such a change so that when this colour coding is introduced right across all UK products, then the colour of the bottle would match that of the colour pie chart nutritional statistics and be easier to pick out the bottle of your own favourite choice from going by both of those colour codes.

The colour coding for milk has been around for years. The only person confused by it is you, everyone else understands it and is used to it.

Exactly.

I am not confused neither have I ever been confused by the colour coding of milk bottles.

The point I am trying to make is that with the colour coding on the healthyness (if that's such a word) of milk and other foods and drink especially in Sainsbury's is that Green is the Most Healthiest and Red is the Least Healthiest so on that score, it seems only right that the Most Healthiest milk should be Skimmed and be coloured Green and the Least Healthiest milk should be Whole Fat milk and be coloured Red.

why is whole milk unhealthy?

If you have it as part of a balanced diet it isn't.

Exactly again.

And OP, just to throw something else in the mix, Tesco have a semi-skimmed milk that is purple as well as the usual green one

Like I said, it would still be better if the colours of the milk bottles matched and represented the colours of the pie chart as seen on products in Sainsbury's so Red would be the Least Healthiest option, Yellow for the middle option and Green for the Most Healthiest option regardless of how long the colour scheme has been in use for.

Skimmed isn't the healthy option for children. And your opinion of which milk is the 'most healthiest' is just that - your opinion, not fact. So why should any food be labelled to reflect your view of it?

And BTW it's either 'most healthy' or 'healthiest'. Fact not opinion.

Just to throw a spanner in the works, I prefer Channel Island milk (Gold top)
"Channel Island milk has a higher fat (5.4 per cent) and protein (3.9 per cent) content than whole milk produced by Holstein Friesian cattle (3.9 per cent and 3.3 per cent respectively), and also contains higher levels of calcium, vitamin A and vitamin D than other types of milk"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Channel_Island_milk

So, although it's higher in fat content it contains more protein, calcium and vitamins - not to mention the fact that it tastes nicer.

1% milk round my way is purple. Best not come here or you'll really be confused!

Like I said, I'm not confused, neither have I ever been confused about what milk is what based on the colour alone as English is my only language I really know.

And what I meant about 'Most Healthy' Or 'Least Healthy' I meant by looking at the nutritional pie chart and seeing which milk had more green slices and which had more red and yellow slices.
So this 1% Fat milk I bought for example has:
86 calories
2.0g fat
1.4g sat fat
0.23g salt
9.8g total sugards

Obviously skimmed milk had lower figures than those numbers above.
Likewise semi-skimmed had higher figures than those numbers above.
And Whole milk had higher figures than the figures for semi-skimmed milk.

Seems colour code is correct to me the Red one should be avoided its discussing.

Milk isn't unhealthy. It is a natural product.

Red is probably warning you that you might be better off buying a bottle of water instead of skimmed milk.

Nice one

Another spanner in the works! 1% milk from Asda is in an orange capped bottle lol

This. the Department for Health recommends full fat milk until children are 2 years and not to give 1% or skimmed before they are 5.

A traffic light warning system on bottle tops would confuse parents of very young children.

http://www.nhs.uk/Livewell/Goodfood/...iry-foods.aspx

I tend to do something called "reading the labels" when I go shopping.

I find it helps avoid confusion and answers queries about nutrition and ingredients should I have any when choosing a product.

When I posted this thread, I did not take into account that young children aren't supposed to drink skimmed milk. I did not know that anyway as I don't have children.
I was just basing it on the average adult diet which is why I thought it seemed like a good idea for a traffic light system for milk for green to be the most healthy milk and red to be the least healthy milk.
Purple shouldn't be used by some dairies and green for others. They should all be one colour or another.

What I forgot to point out at the beginning is that Sainsburys' 1% Fat milk is Orange, as is Asda's I see from simonmoore's post. So Orange is not a Spanner in the works, It could be put to good use.

I also read the labels, malpasc. I just thought there would be less to read in the way of different types of milk if the milk was already colour-coded in terms of healthiest.

I think considering no one milk is "healthiest" or "unhealthiest" for all, it's better to have it's own colour coding system, as it is.

The different colours from the normal Blue, Green and Red, tend to be from different brands, which if someone was to pick up, they would read, and usually the brand name, states the fat content, such as the purple which I think is just called 1% milk.

Making Whole Milk Red, could put parents off buying it despite it being better for their children.

It's worked for years without any confusion, or even questioning of it (Until now) and seems most are in agreement the current system works perfectly well.

This topic must be just like how the whole Cheese & Onion/ Salt & Vinegar debarkle started in the late 80's/early 90's
Cheese & Onion is Green I tell ya Darn you Walkers (shakes fist)