These are the first significant changes since the Nutrition Facts label was introduced more than 20 years ago.
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– For packages that are between one and two servings, such as a 20 ounce soda, the calories and other nutrients will be required to be labeled as one serving because people typically consume it in one sitting.
The largest USA chocolate maker, The Hershey Company, said it “will work diligently to make the necessary updates to our Nutrition Facts labels as requested by the FDA”.
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.
The changes reflect how science has changed in the last decade. Small businesses with fewer than $10 million in annual sales have an additional year to comply. But FDA believes highlighting the amount of sugar added during the production process may help Americans cut down on excess discretionary calories they might not have been aware of. He said it’s now impossible for consumers studying the labels to know how much sugar fits into a reasonable diet.
-“Calories from fat” will be removed because the type of fat is more important than the amount.
“Dual column” labels to indicate both “per serving” and “per package” calorie and nutrition information for certain multi-serving food products.
The Obama administration has pushed for labeling added sugars, despite stiff opposition from food and beverage companies, which say there is no difference between naturally present sugars and added sugars. One study by the journal JAMA Internal Medicine found that 71.4 percent of adults “consumed 10% or more of calories from added sugar”.
As with the backfire of single-nutrient emphasis on reducing fat in the 1990s, added sugars labeling may undermine consumer efforts to have healthier diets.
The list of nutrients required to be stated on the label has also changed. Labels will no longer be required to list quantities of vitamins A and C, said the FDA, “because deficiencies of these vitamins are rare”.
“Besides helping consumers make more informed choices, the new labels should also spur food manufacturers to add less sugar to their products”, Jacobson said.
“This long-awaited change represents a real victory for consumers and their health”, said Jim Krieger, director of the non-profit group Healthy Food America, in a statement.
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Susan T. Mayne, Ph.D. and Director of the FDA’s Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition says though the original nutrition labels have stood the test of time, they do update them as needed. Ice cream servings will also change from a half-cup to two-thirds of a cup, and the nutrition facts will change to align with this larger amount.
