The lowest common denominator

What worries me is not news that consumers may be ‘confused’ by rival nutrition labelling systems, but that “47% of adults lacked the numerical skills to understand what the [percentage-based] labels meant.” It’s out of a maximum of a hundred. If you can’t grasp that concept, even if you haven’t had a formal education, I worry that you may reproduce.

And, yes, I did detect the irony of using a percentage to describe the relative number of people who didn’t understand percentages.

• 4 Jan 2007