New Food Package Labels

Have you seen the news yet about the proposed new food labeling that the FDA is working on requiring? The labels on the back of our food packaging (listing serving size, calories, fats, etc.) have been in place as status quo for over 20 years. The proposed face lift will hopefully help consumers make increasingly healthy/educated decisions in the grocery store by highlighting the positives and negatives in the foods they choose.

The FDA is putting up two different proposed labels for the food community to contemplate and critique over the next 90 days. Once any final decisions are made all food manufacturers will have to implement the new labels within the next 2 years.

So what would be so different? Well here’s a sort of checklist of updates:

-Serving sizes will be realistic! That can of iced tea that is supposed to be 2.5 servings will now be reflected as one serving.

-Calorie counts will be in larger, more prominent prints

-All grams of sugar (no matter the form) will be shown as one total

-Calories from Fat will be removed and fat break downs (saturated, trans, etc) will remain

-Vitamins that we’re commonly deficient in (vitamin D, potassium, etc) will be shown over others.

Here are the proposed changes next to the current. Do you think it will ultimately help? It will definitely be easy to read/understand, but do you that the information ultimately changes individual food choices?