LABELS on some of Australia's biggest beer brands will soon carry warnings of health risks, including during pregnancy.

Recommendations to the federal government today suggest laws forcing alcohol packaging to carry health warnings.



This afternoon, Lion Nathan, which owns Tooheys, XXXX and James Boag's, announced it would voluntarily adopt the consumer health messages.



"We have taken this proactive approach to ensure we continue to meet evolving community expectations for more information on primary packaging," a company statement said.



"Because we believe this is the right thing to do we will take these steps regardless of the pending Government response to the report ..."



Former federal health minister Neal Blewett, who chaired the independent review, said the National Health and Medical Research Council recommends pregnant women not drink any alcohol.



"The medical evidence is pretty strong and we did think it was rather odd that you have all this information, all this advice, yet at the point of sale there is no indication at all," he said today.



"That tends to undervalue, therefore, all this other effort to encourage women who are pregnant not to drink."



The panel recommended a general warning, such as "Alcohol is not good for your health", be placed on labels as part of a wider national public health campaign.

'Traffic light' food label call

Dr Blewett also called for clearer labelling to identify foods containing Australian ingredients and said nutritional information should be displayed in fast-food outlets.



Under the "traffic light" food-label system, which has already been adopted in Britain, foods that are high in fat and sugar, for example, are marked in the red category.



Dr Blewett said he believed a range of companies would voluntarily use traffic light labelling on their products, not just those that could display a green mark.

Consumer group Choice has backed the proposed labelling system, but says it doesn't go far enough.

"If this is this going to be useful to consumers, we need to make this mandatory so it's on all foods for all consumers," Choice spokeswoman Clare Hughes said.



The independent panel, commissioned by the Australia and New Zealand Food Regulation Ministerial Council, came out in favour of current rules for labelling genetically modified (GM) food.



The panel said it saw no reason to alter the rule that only foods or ingredients that have altered characteristics or contain detectable novel DNA be required to display a GM label.

The ministerial council will deliver its response to the report to the Council of Australian Governments by the end of this year.



The federal government says it will carefully assess the panel's 61 recommendations.



"This is an important review of what are matters of widespread interest to consumers, regulators and the wider food and health sectors," Parliamentary Secretary for Health and Ageing Catherine King said.



"This report seeks to address many food labelling issues that have challenged governments here and abroad for many years."



The review's key food labelling recommendations:

- Voluntary use of front-of-pack traffic light system

- Fast food outlets be encouraged to display traffic light system and it be mandatory where health claims are made

- A generic alcohol warning message be placed on alcohol labels as part of a national campaign targeting the public health problems associated with alcohol

- Specific alcohol consumption warning for pregnant women be mandated on individual containers of alcohol and at point of sale for unpackaged alcoholic beverages

- Only foods or ingredients that have altered characteristics or contain detectable novel DNA or protein be required to declare the presence of genetically modified material on the label

- All foods or ingredients that have been processed by new technologies be required to be labelled for 30 years from their introduction into the human food chain