"To remain relevant," U.S. Food and Drug Administration commissioner Dr. Margaret Hamburg said in a press statement today, "the FDA's newly proposed Nutrition Facts label incorporates the latest in nutrition science as more has been learned about the connection between what we eat and the development of serious chronic diseases impacting millions of Americans."
Like so many of us, the FDA just wants to remain relevant. Today is the fourth anniversary of Michelle Obama's Let's Move! campaign, and with it the unveiling of new food nutrition labels. The Nutrition Facts label has been required on food packages for 20 years but hasn't changed significantly since 2006 when information on trans fat had to be declared on the label.
At first glance, the new one is not much different. Apart from the giant calorie number.
Apart from just making people feel things, on the guilt-empowerment spectrum, the giant number will be more accurate than the current regular-sized number, the FDA says. That's because the FDA will force manufacturers to reconsider "serving size" based on the size of the container. So a 12-ounce can of soda will be one serving, but so will a 20-ounce bottle of soda. Because not many people buy a 20-ounce soda with the intention of drinking 12 ounces now and 8 at a later date. "What and how much people eat and drink has changed since the serving sizes were first put in place in 1994," the FDA press statement said. "By law, serving sizes must be based on what people actually eat, not on what people 'should' be eating."
Although, doesn't that sort of condone eating more? Like, if a whole container of ice cream is just one serving, I'll eat the whole thing. Because, hey, one serving. Even if that serving size was actually a reaction to me eating too much ice cream in the first place. Anyway. Whatever size package the FDA deems "could be consumed in one sitting," that will be the serving size.
Larger packages will retain the current "per serving" and "per package" two-column system.
In both of these systems at least it means less math. To remain relevant, do not ask people to do math.
The most radical change is the new "added sugars" line. Every day more fingers are pointing at added sugars as drivers of the obesity and diabetes epidemics. The number of people diagnosed with diabetes in the U.S. has nearly tripled in the last twenty years, according to the CDC.
It's worth being aware of added sugars for your own diet, but equally relevant is the hope that being called out on the label will make manufacturers less likely to add said sugar in the first place. When the 2006 trans-fat requirement went into place, if that's any indication, foods suddenly started containing less partially hydrogenated oil, the primary source of trans fat.
The "calories from fat" line will also be removed, because that no longer makes sense in our current understanding of fat. Some fat is good, and some is bad, and it's not helpful to lump them all together. Just yesterday a study said that eating good unsaturated fats actually prevents accumulation of intra-abdominal body fat, which is the most dangerous place to have fat.
Less important is the vitamin section. Potassium and vitamin D now have to be included, because those are good for blood pressure and bones, respectively. But you can get sick from having too much of either, so it's a little strange to think of them as categorically good. Vitamins A and C are no longer required in the proposed label. Vitamin C doesn't prevent or cure colds, we now know, so as long as you've got enough in your diet that you don't get scurvy, there's no need to worry about that. Unless you want to.
No comments:
Post a Comment