This week, the FDA proposed some big changes to food labels (aka the Nutrition Facts label). Some of the changes include:
- Requiring information about the amount of added sugar, not just total sugar.
- Putting the calorie content in larger print.
- Revising servings sizes on some products to better reflect the amount people actually eat.
- Removing (or not requiring) information such as “Calories from Fat”, and Daily Values for vitamins A and C.
I posted about this on my Real Mom Nutrition Facebook page and have been following discussions on other pages as well. There’s an argument I keep hearing: It doesn’t matter what the label says. We should be eating fresh, whole foods, the kinds that don’t even have a label, not packaged foods.
I agree with part of this argument: I believe that a diet of largely whole, fresh foods is best. It’s one I strive for myself when feeding my own family. It’s something I think about every single week when I wheel my cart through the aisles of the grocery store. And it’s one I wrestle with when I’m looking at the packaged tortillas, wishing I had time to make a batch of my own, but knowing full well that I do not.
It’s simply not realistic to say that everyone should stop buying packaged foods. Even people (like me) who make a lot of their own food still rely on packaged staples like cereal and crackers. And guess what? That’s okay.
So how can we say that the label doesn’t matter? How can we say that since people should ideally eat a mostly whole-foods diet, we shouldn’t work to improve the existing label and give people better tools to make decisions about food?
Here’s how I think the new changes can help:
- Calories matter. Yes, diet quality trumps calories. But it’s valuable information that a bran muffin at the natural market contains 650 calories. Too many healthy bran muffins will lead to weight gain, no matter how much whole wheat flour and flaxseed they contain.
- Serving sizes matter. When I do education about label reading, people are always shocked at the serving sizes. They’re shocked that the information on the carton of ice cream is based on a half-cup scoop and that their bottle of sweet tea is actually 2.5 servings. Putting the numbers in line with what people actually eat or drink arms them with more accurate data.
- Sugar matters. Manufacturers are dumping added sugar into so many products. Deciphering the ingredient lists for those sugar aliases can be tough (and time consuming). By adding “added sugar” to the label, people know right away how much sugar in the yogurt is added versus natural. They’ll know that Wheat Thins contain added sugar while Triscuits do not. They’ll know which jarred pasta sauces are super-sweetened. When comparing products across a category, that’s gold.
Are the new labels perfect? Of course they’re not. Here’s what I’d love to see:
- A clearer explanation of what the numbers mean. That large, bolded “650 Calories” on the bran muffin? Not very useful unless I know the ballpark calorie figure I’m aiming for everyday (yes, there’s a box at the bottom of the food label that spells this out but that information should be more prominent and more clearly conveyed). Few consumers I talk to understand how to interpret Daily Values. And wouldn’t it be nice if added sugar was translated into teaspoons so you knew that there were three teaspoons of added sugar in the packet of instant oatmeal?
- A more readable ingredient list that spells out which ingredients are artificial sweeteners or preservatives, for instance. I like this idea from the Center for Science in the Public Interest for simplifying the list.
- Some kind of rating system a la the NuVal system or the Fooducate grades.
What do YOU think about the proposed changes? And what would you like to see on labels?
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Great piece. Thanks for putting it together.
Thanks Caron!
Totally agree, Sally. I’m thrilled that the food label is getting a makeover. In a perfect world we’d all have the time and skills to make everything from scratch. But we need to deal in reality and the reality is that most of us rely in some way on packaged foods. Most Americans, in fact, rely on a LOT of packaged foods. The FDA should make it as easy as possible for consumers to understand what is in the food they buy so they can make sounds decisions. Great piece.
Thanks Katie! Here’s to even more changes in the future but for now, I’m pleased with the progress.
Agreed! The new label changes do seem like they’ll be helpful to a wider audience, and offer more clarifications. It seems to me that most discussions on whole foods, why you should go unprocessed, etc. are well intentioned but don’t cater to those who are not in a place to be making those types of purchases. How easily we forget that not all Americans have the ability or desire to make the same choices. I also believe there is a place for convenience items, and no one needs guilt about buying them! I appreciate your common sense approach, thanks!
Thanks for your comment Sam. Agree agree agree that not everyone actually WANTS to eat largely unprocessed foods or is in the position (because of finances, time, abilities, etc) to do so.
Nice piece! I agree that the proposed changes would be a big improvement from current labels, which hopefully could engender substantial changes in the extent to which people understand and utilize the nutritional info on labels. In my opinion, the added sugar and serving size changes are incredibly important. Particularly considering the increasing numbers of good quality peer-reviewed studies coming out about the deleterious effects of added sugar (and corn syrup/sweeteners generally), people need to be better equipped to avoid too much sugar (and while a label is far from a solution to something potentially addictive, it’s a start!). And as you point out, serving size is crucial. It would be really helpful to know that a pint of ice cream actually has 2 servings rather than 4-6. We need more widespread education about what a serving size means, beyond the labels – as you point out, it’s still relevant for non-labeled foods (as I know too well from my own experiences – it’s really easy to overeat bulk bin trail mix and organic extra-large cookies!!). Finally, the most important thing for me here is that we need to make sure this proposal actually becomes practice – there are a lot of steps (and a lot of industry interests) between here and there.
Thanks Hanna. Yep, it will be interesting to see what the food industry comes back with regarding the food label. I’m guessing that the added sugar break-out will not be especially popular…. 🙂
Sally,
You must be reading my mind. I agree that the label matters very much. I use it along with the ingredient line to make my choices — including how often I serve it. I, too, would love to make everything from scratch but simply don’t have time (and there are some items I have failed at making from scratch that I prefer to buy already made).
I don’t believe every packaged item is junk at all. It really depends on the product and the food label gives us that additional information. Sugar may be included in the ingredient line but if there is only 2 grams per serving, that helps me understand how much is in a typical serving my family eats. Thanks for posting about this!
Thanks Maryann. Ditto about from-scratch cooking–love it, but there are still packaged items I buy every single week. And I agree about sugar–and it can be hard to scour the ingredient list for all the different aliases, especially when you’re time-crunched at the store, and knowing the exact amount of added sugar is so helpful.
I would like to see labels indicating the grams of omega-6 linoleic acid in each serving. I’m reasonably certain that excessive consumption of polyunsaturated fatty acids is a major factor driving the global epidemics of obesity and non-communicable disease. Excerpt from a recent New York Times article about 99-year-old biochemist Fred Kummerow.
“In the past two years, he has published four papers in peer-reviewed scientific journals, two of them devoted to another major culprit he has singled out as responsible for atherosclerosis, or the hardening of the arteries: an excess of polyunsaturated vegetable oils like soybean, corn and sunflower — exactly the types of fats Americans have been urged to consume for the past several decades. ” http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/17/health/a-lifelong-fight-against-trans-fat.html?_r=0
Agreed! And thanks for pointing out the sugar-in-teaspoons thing – hadn’t occurred to me, but that would definitely help consumers if the label lined up what they typically hear in dietary guidance (<6-9 tsps/day, or similar).
Thanks Kat. Yeah, wouldn’t that be cool? Would definitely help people better visualize the amount of sugar.