A supervisory body yesterday urged food industry to approve color-coded warning labels.

The decision was made by the Food Standards Agency's board reunion in Cardiff. The Food Standards Agency had decided to drop its insistence that manufacturers use 'traffic light' colors to cut obesity, heart attack and other diseases.

The FSA planned to display two out of the subsequent three techniques to signify the healthiness of food which includes the colors red, amber and green and amount of nutrients like salt and fat.

“By backing down now, the Agency is undermining the credibility of its research. If the FSA is serious about helping people make healthy choices then it needs to stick to its guns and continue to push for a single nutrition labeling scheme”, said Chief Executive, Peter Vicary-Smith.

Several branded food companies would be labeled if the producers would participate in the Food Standards Agency's traffic light plan. Colors would give an idea to consumers about the level of four nutrients such as fat, saturated fat, sugar and salt.

Red indicates an elevated level, amber indicates medium and green indicates low level.