New health-related food labels may be coming soon

The Institute of Medicine on Friday , Oct 21, 2011, urged government agencies to adopt new food labeling to put in front of food packages with the most important information for health: how many calories per serving — and just how big that serving is — along with stars or some other symbol to show at a glance how the food rates for certain fats, sodium and added sugars.

 In a report to federal regulators, a study requested by Congress was released by The Institute of Medicine and sent to the Food and Drug Administration, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Department of Agriculture. It calls on the agencies to establish a uniform labeling system “to replace the confusing proliferation of front-of-package labels greeting consumers on store shelves today.” It calls for a simplified label containing  zero to three stars or checkmarks to indicate how healthful a food was.

“The nutrition label on the front of a box of cereal, a frozen dinner or any other food should be as quick and easy to read as the Energy Star label on a clothes washer or an air-conditioner.” The “number of stars or checks should be based only on three types of nutrients that were eaten too much by many people: added sugars, sodium and saturated or trans fats.” They chose those nutrients because they were the ones most closely associated with major illnesses like obesity, diabetes and heart disease. The institute of Medicine is part of the nonprofit National Academies.

Alice H. Lichtenstein, a nutrition professor at Tufts University,  served on the committee that prepared the report.  She said “It’s simple…….It’s interpretive. People don’t need to look at numbers or do any calculations to figure out what they mean. Three stars are better than no stars.”

Margaret Hamburg, the F.D.A. commissioner, wants to improve front-of-package labels, but the FDA is not expected to move quickly on the institute’s recommendations. The F.D.A. said it was “continuing to assess the topic. “

I agree that the nutrition labels can use an upgrade, but I'm not sure a simple system is going to meet everyone's needs. There are a few similar systems already available, such as the Guiding Stars used in Hannaford grocery stores, and NuVal. Very few of my clients utilize these supposedly simple systems, and when they do, they always have a lot of questions about them. Yet I find it's relatively simple to teach people to compare amounts of fiber, sodium, trans fat, etc in various foods using the current label. It seems to me that most people know which foods are healthier, and that it's easier to blame food manufacturers and food labels instead of taking responsibility for our own individual food choices.

While I do want to be better informed of nutrition information when shopping, I am dissappointed with the moves towards "less intelligent" labelling.  I want the facts.  I don't want someone to interpret the facts for me.  I am diabetic.  I don't agree with the USDA/ADA dietary guidance.  And I don't consider grains a good thing and fat a bad thing.  As a diabetic, I consider these moves towards simplified labelling as a step backward. 

If I were to improve nutrition labelling I would I requires full accounting of:

Carbs into total carbs, insoluble/soluble fiber, sugar, and sugar alcohols
Fats into saturated, poly and mono and trans (and all hydrogenated fats of any kind need to be counted as trans)
Protein
and wether the produc may contain or have had contact with gluten, dairy or nuts

And you can't count carbs as fiber unless it is shown in a study to be indigestable in 80% of people.

So I expect that the new nutrition labeling will be useless to me as a diabetic patient.   I will probably need to look for one star products to find the low carb, high fat products that make up the majority of my diet.

I agree with your points about wanting more intelligent labeling, Brian. Thanks for stating your reasons so clearly. I would hope that any type of front of package labeling won't mean that they do away with the more complete information on the back of the package.

I agree with Brian,

Soy products are also insidious and often you need to look very carefully to see if soy related products are included.

Given the thyroid and other issues related to soy product ingestion that is of concern to me as well.

 I agree. The labels say nothing about unhealthy artificial colors & flavors. Says nothing about GMO's and food origin. Would you really trust "organic" stawberries, or any supposed organic frts & veggies from China?? Just to site one example. The shipping & holding of foods by boats & trucks & planes is almost entirely unregulated. To think Jensen farms, & listeria tainted catelope catastrophe, only to learn that in 40 years, like many farms was NEVER inspected by the USDA or FDA.
 Need I mention unhealthy additives, preservatives, hormones & pesticide uses in foods. No system to addres that. So, I agree, the current labeling, like Nuval is not only confusing & misleading, but also too simplified.

I agree with others that I would prefer the more detailed labeling to remain on the back if the simplified labeling is put on the front.  But I do believe there are a lot of non-label readers out there that might benefit from the simplified labels.  We are an untypical audience for this discussion as we are all focused on nutrition content, but the average joe and jane might look at something they never wanted to look at before because it was too intimidating. 

I was visiting my college-age sons in Colorado the past few days, and when we were at the grocery store I noticed that they used the NuVal system. Neither one of my sons or one of their girlfriends had ever noticed the NuVal front of the label nutrition system before I pointed it out. Yet once I mentioned it, they started looking at the numbers and even made a few choices based on those numbers. This brief encounter tells me first-hand the potential value of this type of front of package labeling system, but I agree that we still need the detailed information.

Obviously, simplifying a nutrition label is no so simple.  I do like the notion of the star system to give those who only want to give the lael a cursory look, but for those with food allerigies, or more specific needs, the full nutrition label would still need to be available.

Great comments everyone!!! As far as I know , the full nutrition label will still be available in addition to the star system.

Related article in the recent Diabetes in Contrl newsletter...

Why People Don't Read Nutrition Labels

How often do people look at the Nutrition Facts label on the side of the box? A new study reveals that people say they look at it a lot more than they actually do....

http://www.diabetesincontrol.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=11676&catid=53&Itemid=8

-- 
Bruce W. Miller, Ph.D.
Conservation Ecologist
Neotropical Bat Project


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Bruce, I just read that and was going to add the link to this discussion!  I found it very interesting in light of the new method of labeling, you beat me to it. 

I'm all for keeping the nutrition facts label on there.  We need the facts!  Take a trip to another country and realize how lucky we are to have them.  But I also agree that there needs to be a simplified system to make choices for the average person.  However, coming up with a system that will satisfy everyone is another story.  That opens an entire can of worms.  I teach my patients to use the current label to COMPARE like products.  For example, which cereal to buy or which yogurt to choose.  

I am amazed when someone tells me they look at the label and I'll ask what they look for and they say something like "sugar".  So I ask, what about sugar are you looking for and they say they look to see if it has too much.  So I ask, how much is too much?  And then they admit that they really don't know.  They are usually just making a guess.    

It is unforturnate that we provide all this great information on the food label but the average person has no idea how to make it work for them.  They don't know how much is too much or not enough, etc.  The USDA recommends that 20% or more of the %DV is 'high' and 20% or less is 'low'.  Has anyone used that strategy?  I began teaching it at one time but it never really caught on for me.  Like I said, I usually teach people to compare similar products looking at total calories, total fat grams and total carbohydrate grams.  Then I give them an idea of how many calories, fat grams, and carb grams they need in a day or meal as a reference.  

The FDA should be moving quickly on this, why not?