from The Washongton Post, May 20, 2016
Michelle Obama on Friday unveiled the much-anticipated overhaul of the nutrition labels you see on every packaged product at the grocery store and … it looks a lot like the old one – at least superficially. Thenew label still retains the minimalist black-and-white, two-column look that designers have praised over the years, and it highlights many of the same categories like cholesterol and sodium. But this is where it might get confusing: Even though it doesn’t look all that different, some categories are now emphasized more than others, and the way some numbers are calculated has changed. These are critical updates that highlight the breakthroughs in nutrition science and upheavals in our country’s disease burden over the years. Many of the changes represent losses for the food industry, which fought hard against updates that essentially put some of the blame for our poor health on added sugars, eating overly large quantities of servings and consuming too many calories.
So it’s important that you read on to learn more about how it all works.
William Dietz, who researches obesity, nutrition and physical fitness at the Milken Institute School of Public Health at the George Washington University, called the new label “a big improvement.”
“It conveys pertinent new information that consumers have never had before,” he said in an interview.
Experts predict that the new labeling guidelines may cost manufacturers a lot of money to reformulate their products to make them more appealing under the new guidelines. While reducing things like added sugars may sound simple, it actually requires a complex a time-consuming and complex science. Your morning cereal, for example, could turn to dust in your bowl if there isn’t enough sugar to hold it together. Or if you want to increase the amount of whole grains to a product, you may have to add more sugar to offset the bitterness of the new taste.
Then there’s the issue that some Americans equate something that’s healthier with something that’s less tasty.
Kraft recently revealed that it had reduced the sodium in its macaroni and cheese without telling consumers until the product had already been out for months for fear of alienating fans of its original product.
The Nutrition Facts label was introduced more than 20 years ago by the government with the goal of helping consumers eat more healthfully. The FDA has been working to update the tag, which is put on almost all packaged foods, for more than two years. Americans will start seeing the new label soon since most manufacturers will be required to have theirs in place by July 26, 2018. (Those with annual food sales of less than $10 million will have another year to comply.)
Government standards regarding labeling of what we eat is extremely high stakes and has the potential to boost sales of certain types of foods while tanking sales of others. When the Food and Drug Administration first announced several years ago that it wanted to revise the system, there was a huge debate over its content and design. Everyone from consumers to scientists and food lobbyists got involved.
In a statement prior to the official announcement at the Partnership for a Healthier America Summit in Washington, Obama said she believes the new label "is going to make a real difference in providing families across the country the information they need to make healthy choices.”
Here’s a look at some key changes:
-
Serving sizes.
This is perhaps the most important and controversial update and one that has not been changed in 20 years. The serving sizes now reflect what people currently eat — not how much companies think they should be eating. So serving sizes that were equivalent to only a few chips might now reflect the whole package. This change is consistent with the new Nutrition Labeling and Education Act, but there has been a lot of concern that people will take the serving sizes — which as a whole will be much larger than in the past — as recommendations rather than descriptions. In a study published in the journal Appetite,researchers argued that this change will not make Americans eat healthier but make them eat more and get fatter. FDA officials have said they disagree with that take and emphasized that serving sizes for some
foods — like yogurt — will actually go down. -
Calories.
The total count is now highlighted in huge letters rather than being in the same type size as the other nutrition information. This change, FDA officials have said, reflects the country’s growing obesity epidemic. -
Added sugars.
This completely new category is important given recent updates to the dietary guidelines urging Americans to cut down on sugars that come fromprocessed foods like cakes and cookies. Added sugars are measured in both grams and as a percent daily value. The sugar industry has said that this emphasis on added sugars is “not scientifically justifiable," but the FDA has said it believes the evidence against over-consuming this type of sugar is strong
. -
Multi-serving products.
For some food products that could be consumed in multiple sittings — or in one single swoop if you really have the munchies — there will now be two columns to indicate the per-serving and per-package calorie and nutrition information that will save you from doing some math. This will include items like that pint of Ben & Jerry’s ice cream. -
Odd-sized packages.
Packages or containers that are between one and two servings — like 20-ounce
bottles of sodas — will now be labeled as one serving…