By Kyle LoJacono
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is revising nutritional labels to help people more easily make decisions about what they eat.
FDA Deputy Commissioner Michael Taylor said the new labeling system will not only change the information presented to be more useful for consumers, but it will also create more realistic serving sizes. The FDA’s new labeling system will also put a bigger emphasis on calories, while reducing the prominence of the daily percent value numbers for elements like carbohydrates, fats and sodium.
Taylor said the department has been working with doctors, nutritionists and every-day people since 2003 to find the best way to present information about food. The goal is to help stem the tide of obesity in this country.
“There’s no question obesity is a central public health concern that the nutrition facts panel can play a role in,” Taylor said. “It’s obviously not a magic wand, but it can be an informative tool.”
Taylor said the new labeling system could be put in place as early as the year’s end, but more likely will be unveiled sometime in the first half of 2012. Emily Mark, one of three dietitians with Pasco County School’s Food and Nutrition Services Department, said the changes will help children make better choices as well.
“I think the best change would be the serving size,” Mark said. “Some of the time serving sizes of food are nowhere near the amount the average person eats.”
Two popular sweet treats that will see their serving sizes change are soda and ice cream. Currently, the serving size for ice cream is a half cup, while 20-ounce soda bottles contain 2.5 servings of the carbonated drink.
“I’d say that most people drink those soda bottles by themselves and people who eat ice cream have a lot more than a half cup of ice cream,” Mark said. “The problem is they look at the label and see the number of calories and assume that’s how many calories they’ve eaten. It gets people into trouble.”
Taylor said other servings for food commonly eaten in one sitting by a single person, such as a can of soup, will also be altered.
The current food labels were designed about 20 years ago as a way to give a glance at what nutritional information is in food. Taylor said they were not meant to help people manage their weight, but the FDA has learned that is exactly what many people use them for.
Taylor said the new labels will allow people to better determine if food is healthy for them based on their own health situation.
For more information on the FDA’s food labeling system, visit www.fda.gov.
