Sugar – is not evil. But we are consuming more than ever now. HFCS is the easiest and cheapest way to get a product to taste better and it has found its way into way too many foods. If added sugar labeling would be a requirement, companies would cut down substantially. Just like they did with trans fat.

Rounding errors – when it comes to trans-fat, 0.4 grams per serving is also too much. It’s not too difficult to mark 0.7g or 0.9g, so why not mark 0.3?

Allergens warnings – my point is that the warnings need to be uniform.

The government should not tell us what to eat, but it should definitely help people who want transparent, reliable, and complete information to get it. That way people can make informed choices, not choices based on half-truths and partial disclosures.

There has been some talk of moving toward a nutrient density system and the FDA has expressed at least some interest in this and perhaps such an approach would improve things. As it stands “healthy” is more defined by what it is NOT than what it is.

2. Characterizing “sugar” as bad and establishing a maximum threshold per day does not automatically equate to a healthier diet. What’s more important than the sugar content is the nutrient density of the foods we eat.

For instance, say I were trying to simply avoid products with a sugar amount listed under the carbohydrate amount. If I were uninformed about healthy choices I may be led to think, therefore, that white four and corn meal should be eaten in greater abundance that, say, fruit. White flour and corn meal both list “0 grams of sugar”. Yet starch has much the same effect on our body even though it is “complex” compared to dissacharides like lactose in milk or sucrose.

3. The ingredients list will reveal the presence of added sugars quite easily. And how far down the list those sugars are will give you a good idea of their relative abundance. If you look at milk and see a “sugar” amount listed but then look at the ingredients and you don’t see “sugar” or “high fructose corn syrup” then the sugar is natural milk sugar..lactose.

4. Various things have always been allowed to be rounded in this way. Fats are reported to the “nearest .5 gram”. It is a concession to technology. The rounding thing didn’t just get invented for trans fat but every body harps on that.

7. That is a tricky situation because these types of warnings, i.e. “manufactured in a plant that also processes peanuts” for instance could easily be used as a clear all for faulty practices and specifically not adhering to Good Manufacturing Guidelines.

As a matter of fact such has already happened. I can’t remember for sure, but I think it was a line of Trader Joe’s product where the company decided to just stick such a warning on every product. “Just in case” – even though it was not accurate. It must be ACCURATE and therein lies the problem.

10. I think that is going a bit off the deep end. The more the government does of this nature the more people want to wash their hands of their own responsibility to make healthy choices. Again, this all sounds like wanting the FDA to basically legislate “health”.

This way eaters will be more able to make an informed decision of what they put into their bodies.