There are 20 grams of sugar in the package of dried mango I just ate at my desk while reading over the changes to the nutrition label announced by Michelle Obama and the Food and Drug Administration on Friday.
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“For kids and parents to make decision on the foods they want to eat, anything that makes it easier for them to see what they’re going to be eating is great”, Rogers says.
Daily values for nutrients like sodium, dietary fiber and vitamin D are being updated based on newer scientific evidence from the Institute of Medicine and other reports such as the 2015 Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee Report, which was used in developing the 2015-2020 Dietary Guidelines for Americans.
“Besides helping consumers make more informed choices, the new labels should also spur food manufacturers to add less sugar to their products”.
Nutrition advocates have long sought an added sugars line on the label so consumers can understand how much sugar in an item is naturally occurring, like that in fruit and dairy products, and how much is put in by the manufacturer.
An updated design to highlight “calories” and “servings”, two important elements in making informed food choices.
Calories will be larger and bolder.
An increase in type size on product labels will draw attention to calorie counts, as will some increases in the sizes of typical servings that better reflect how much of a product people normally eat at one sitting.
“Scientific data shows that it is hard to meet nutrient needs while staying within calorie limits if you consume more than 10% of your total daily calories from added sugar, and this is consistent with the 2015-2020 Dietary Guidelines for America”, FDA said in its announcement. For example, a pint of ice cream or a 3-ounce bag of chips.
Among the changes are a redesign of the label to more prominently feature calories and serving size, new terms for listing serving size, stricter disclosure requirements for “added sugars”, the removal of “calories from fat” data on labels, and others. “But if consumed in excess, it becomes more hard to also eat foods with enough dietary fiber and essential vitamins and minerals and still stay within calorie limits”.
For more than 20 years, Americans have been relying on the nutrition label’s instantly recognizable black-and-white grid to figure out what’s in packaged foods, and just how bad they are for us. Vitamins A and C are now voluntary. Any more makes it “difficult to meet nutrient needs while staying within calorie requirements”.
The food industry has two years to comply.
Labels also must now list levels of potassium and Vitamin D, nutrients Americans don’t get enough of.
A “dual column” for products larger than a single serving that show the amount of calories and nutrients in both a serving and entire package.
“This is not about telling people what they should eat”, FDA Commissioner Robert Califf said in a blog post.
It’s the first redesign in nutrition labels in over 20 years, notes the FDA.
The fulfillment dates for this FDA directive is that manufacturers will require the issuance of the new label by July 26, 2018.
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The FDA proposed including “added sugar” on the label last summer, and many food companies, such as General Mills, opposed it.
