Last week, the FDA  hinted it would be seriously looking at regulating Front of Pack (FOP) nutrition labeling systems. As a result, Smart Choices called it quits, and other programs are “on alert”. The FDA’s involvement can be of great assistance to the public, by creating a single unified system in ALL supermarkets and on ALL packages.

But first, wouldn’t it be nice if the FDA cleaned up the mess originally created when the Nutrition Labeling and Education Act (NLEA) brought us the nutrition facts label as we know it today?

Here’s a list of 10 things the FDA can do to improve the existing information on labels. Read more…

It’s been almost 20 years since the nutrition label as we know it was introduced. The intent was to empower consumers to make more informed (read: healthy) purchasing decisions. Unfortunately, the labels have not helped, as America continues to grow, and not in a good way.

While blaming the inadequacy of the nutrition panel is a naive approach to America’s relationship with its food, there are certain oversights or loopholes in the way packaged food information is provided to consumers today. For example, health claims or nutrient claims, which appear in large font on the front of package, embellish one positive trait, say “low-fat”. The nutritional cost may be a product high in sugar content as compensation. But such details appear in the side panel (the nutrition label is never up front), and consumers don’t always bother to check.

We’ve compiled a list of improvements that can make labels and packaging even more informative, hopefully providing consumers with  better tools to make a decision. Consumers will benefit from increased transparency of nutrition and ingredient information. Read more…

Sustainability has been a big buzzword in the last few years. The organic food movement has been preaching sustainable farming practices for over 50 years. And with local food growing in popularity over the past several years, more people are interested to know how far their food has traveled to reach the supermarket.

According to Terry Tamminen, who advises world leaders on design and implementation of climate-change solutions, “sustainability labels” are coming to supermarkets. In an interview with FastCompany magazine, he provided some insight into sustainability trends: Read more…

The Smart Choices food label program launched this weekend at the American Dietetic Association’s annual Food and Nutrition Conference and Expo. In a previous post, we briefly outlined the history of food regulation and labeling.

Today we’ll explain the background for Smart Choices, what it’s doing right, and where it can improve.

Background:
Starting with the Nutrition Labeling and Education Act in 1990 (NLEA), The USDA and FDA have required food manufacturers to disclose the following information on their food packaging: ingredient list, allergy warnings, and nutrient information. The information must be displayed in a uniform standardized manner. In return for this effort, manufacturers were allowed to publish health claims prominently on the front of the product package.

Consumers embraced the nutrition information that became available, and began making more educated purchase decisions. However, many became confused with the information overflow. Cryptic ingredient names and Daily Value calculations presented new challenges to shoppers. If the FDA hoped through nutrition labels to encourage a healthier consumer, quite the opposite transpired in the past two decades, as obesity rates and diet related illnesses have shot up .

So recently, manufacturers stepped up individually to the challenge, and began offering their consumers healthy choices within their product families. Several manufacturers launched marketing campaigns promoting their “better for you” brands. In 2004, PespiCo introduced SmartSpot seals on some of its reduced fat/sugar/sodium products. In 2005 Kraft launched a similar Sensible Solutions, and several other manufacturers followed suit. And then there’s the American Heart Association Heart Check Seal.

However, all these programs have added to, not decreased, the public’s confusion over what to buy and eat. Consumer groups have called upon the FDA to step in and create a uniform benchmark for all food manufacturers that will become a standard for front of package nutrition information. To date, the FDA has not. This is where the not-for-profit Keystone Center stepped in and helped bring together industry leaders and academic nutrition experts to find a solution. Sensing that if the food industry doesn’t figure out a way to handle front of package label standardization, the FDA will, rival manufacturers finally banded together to self-regulate and create a single “Smart Choices” standard.

Smart Choices includes a BIG GREEN CHECKMARK for eligible foods, as well as calorie count and number of servings in the package. A product can display the seal only if it meets all the required nutrition criteria as defined by the “Smart Choices” roundtable. Several industry titans have stated they will be in the program, set to roll out mid-2009, including Unilever, Kraft, General Mills, Coca-Cola, PepsiCo, Kellogg’s, and Wal-Mart.

Why Smart Choice is good:

1. Simplicity. Consumers get a quick answer to their question “is this food healthy?”

2. Uniformity. assuming all manufacturers join in, “Smart Choices” creates a uniform language in the supermarket and lets consumers quickly identify the less fattening products.

3. Calories. By presenting calories upfront, people immediately get the most important data point without having to search for it in small print on the nutrition label in the side or back panel.

How could Smart Choices be better:

1. Self regulation doesn’t work. Just look where it has gotten our financial system recently. It’s really simple to explain: Food manufacturers need to show growing profits. to do that, they need to sell us more food, not less. To sell more food, we need to buy more products. We’ll buy more products that we beleive are good for us. Therefore, manufacturers would like as many products as possible to be eligible for a Smart Choice seal. Thus, they will not adopt a benchmark that is too stringent. As Michael F. Jacobsen, executive director of nonprofit Center for Science in the Public Interest writes: “A disinterested funder and committee of experts free of conflicts of interest likely would have rated the healthfulness of foods differently from the ‘better for you’ Smart Choices Program adopted by the roundtable.”

2. Not really a standard. Not all food manufacturers and retailers will join. There are competing industry standards vying for the same success. Guiding Stars has been in use at Hannaford Brothers Supermarkets for the last 2 years. NuVal has just launched at Hy-vee.

3. “Worse for you”. Systems such as UK’s Traffic Lights point out the bad, not just the good in a product.  A product which is low in sugar but high in saturated fat will get a “green light” for sugar, but a “red light” for the fat. The consumer gets a better picture.  A benchmark system such as Smart Choices does not point out products that may be “worse for you”, full of sodium, sugar, and fat. No sane marketer would ever want something negative to be prominently displayed on her products. It only happens when the government thinks it’s important. Just look at the long fought battle of the cigarette industry with the FDA until cigarettes/cancer messages were placed on every pack. That will probably not happen with food, not even the lowliest junk food.

4. Black and white in a gray world. The Yes/No message dichotomy oversimplifies food to a point of being ineffective. If you’re standing in front of a supermarket shelf and have to choose between two similar spaghetti sauces, both with a Smart Choices seal, which is better? What about two frozen pizzas without a seal? The NuVal system (not perfect either) grades each product from 1-100, giving consumers a much better picture of each product’s relative and absolute “nutrition value”.

5. Lenient Criteria. Some of the criteria chosen by the food industry seem a bit too lenient. For example, 12 grams of sugar per serving is more than 2 teaspoons worth. Yet a sugary breakfast cereal toting this amount is a Smart Choice, as it is fortified with vitamins and minerals.

6. Different strokes for different folks. A middle aged diabetic has different dietary needs than a healthy teenager or a senior suffering from hypertension and trying to reduce sodium intake. How can the same exact products be “better for” all of them?

Conclusion:

“Smart Choices” will not solve our obesity epidemic. But it does attempt to give some guidance. Not all the problems we pointed to can be addressed immediately, but at least there are advances in the right  direction. Hopefully consumers will use the information provided to them and start making better decisions.
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Test your understanding of what “high in fiber”, “low fat”, “excellent source of protein” really mean. Brought to you by the Sacramento Bee. Answer True/False:

1. When a product is touted as “high” in a nutrient, it must contain at least 20 percent of the Daily Value.

2. The milk label reads “excellent source of calcium” so one serving must have at least half your daily calcium needs.

more…

What you need to know:

For a full description of what claims food manufacturers are allowed to make on packaging take a look at the FDA’s Food Labeling Guidelines. It’s quite exhaustive, so you can skip to the Tables in Appendix A and Appendix B.

What to look for at the supermarket:

Don’t read just the product health claims. Read the fine print. Check the nutritional value. Look for the amounts of less desirable ingredients (i.e. sugar, fat, cholesterol, sodium).

flick photo: bethography - melting mama

We all know that we should eat healthier foods. Yet for most of us, a visit to the supermarket usually ends with several unintended purchases. Raise your hands if have ended up buying a bag of chips, or some candy you had not planned on bringing home.

Research in the Netherlands, published in the September 2008 edition of The Journal of Nutrition Education and Behavior, may shed some light on intentions vs. action. Participants indicated their intentioned snack choice from a set of 4 snacks (2 healthful – apple, orange, 2 unhealthful – candy bar, waffle). One week later, they actually chose a snack from the same set. 27% who intended to choose healthy switched to the candy bar or waffle. Only 10% who intended to choose a sweet switched to a fruit.

Medical News Today tries to explain:

a substantial gap between healthy snack choice intentions and actual behavior was demonstrated. Despite that gap, the results suggest that individuals who plan to make a healthful choice are more likely to do so than those who plan to make unhealthful choices

What to do at the supermarket:

Plan ahead and create a healthy intention. Prepare a shopping list and stick to it. Don’t shop while hungry. Keep focused on your dietary goals, despite the sweet aromas and enticing deals at the supermarket. Read the food labels and look for your no-no’s. It’s fine to indulge, but try to set limits for yourself (i.e. only 3 snack items per visit to the grocer).

Food Label. Source: FDA

Ever since the FDA’s Nutrition Labeling and Education Act (NLEA) was enacted in the early 1990’s, food package labels have been a battleground between the food industry and consumer interest groups. While the former try to limit the disclosures, the latter want more information to be available to the public.

In 2004, Congress has required food manufacturers to clearly state whether a product contains any of the eight most common food allergens, in simple English, for example “This product contains Milk”, not whey or casein. In 2005, companies were required to start labeling fish and shellfish .

The latest round in the battle for more information revolves around COOL – Country of Origin Labeling. The USDA believes people want to know where their beef comes from, especially when third world countries with less food safety regulations are involved. But food industry representatives have been claiming that this kind of information system is too costly and difficult to implement.

Here’s the story from CNNMoney:

Under the federal mandate, supermarkets, large grocery stores and wholesale clubs must let consumers know where staples like beef, chicken, pork, lamb, vegetables and fruit come from. The law, part of the 2008 Farm Bill passed this summer, takes effect at the end of next month. more..

What you need to know:

If you prefer to support US farmers, or are worried about the safety level of foods coming from other countries, or think that flying fruit over from Chile is a environmentally wrong, the COOL label can help you make a more informed decision.

What to look for at the Supermarket:

Starting in October, look for the new information, either printed on the food label or added as a sticker.