Help the FDA Improve

NUTRITION FACTS LABELS

The FDA is reconsidering the Nutrition Facts Panel. Almost 20 years after the Nutrition Labeling and Education Act of 1990, and with soaring rates of obesity, one could argue that the goals of a healthier, slimmer America have not been achieved.

The Food and Drug Administration, charged with most foods’ nutrition labeling realizes this. So it has decided to experiment with changes, additions, and omissions in order to improve consumer understanding of what they are about to eat.

But before building the experiment, the FDA is soliciting comments from the public, and that includes us – you, me, and whoever cares about nutrition. Unfortunately, the digital hallways of the federal government are not user friendly and it is not trivial to find the right webpage to comment. This means that in many cases, the only comments come from food manufacturers and trade groups. You can probably guess what their comments will look like.

So here’s some help from Fooducate. Not only did we dig up the single click that takes you straight to the comment page, we’ve also collated Seven Label Improvement Suggestions [see below] that you can suggest to the FDA.

The invitation to comment by the FDA can be downloaded [PDF] or viewed online.

You need to submit your comments by January 19, 2010. For reference, the docket number is FDA–2009–N–0532 and you can submit your comment here.

Seven Suggested Label Improvements:

If you are contemplating what improvements the FDA should undertake, let us help with a few examples. Feel free to “copy paste” when you file your comment with the FDA.

1. Show REAL serving size. Have you ever noticed the ridiculously small serving sizes on packages – 3 Oreos? 15 potato chips? Or a single serve 20 fl oz bottle of cola written up as containing 2.5 servings? Manufacturers like to minimize the servings to toddler size portions so that the nutrition facts per serving won’t seem too bad (calories, sugar, etc…). This is misleading and needs to change to reflect how people really consume food and drink.

2. How much ADDED sugar? The nutrition label states the amount of total sugar in a serving, but it does not indicate whether the sugar is added to the food, occurs naturally, or both. Caloric-ly, there is no difference between added sugar and sugar found naturally in fruits and vegetables. But the benefit of fruits containing naturally occurring sugars is in the additional vitamins, minerals, fiber, antioxidantss and phytochemicals they provide. Added sugars provide no health benefits. They are truly empty calories. People should choose products with as little added sugar as possible. Unfortunately, today consumers can only guess how much sugar has been added to a product.

3. Daily Values for Protein, Sugar. These numbers don’t appear on nutrition labels today and consumers can only guess if 5 grams of protein are a lot or a little. As most people consume plenty of protein daily, this will decrease the marketing hype around high protein bars and snacks. As for sugar, people don’t know what amount is an acceptable daily intake of total sugar, and of added sugar.

4. Zero should be zero. Did you know that if a product contains trans fat, but less than 0.5 grams per serving, it can legally be labeled as 0 gram of trans fat? This is ridiculous. Knowing this, manufacturers can “calibrate” serving sizes to be just under half a gram’s worth of trans-fat, thus earning the right to place the coveted zero number on the nutrition label. But when wolfing down a snack bag (real serving size much larger than labeled – see #1 above), you could be getting even 1.25 grams of trans-fat, all while thinking that the product contains none at all.

5. Caffeine content. Products that contain caffeine should clearly state the amount. People are often surprised to discover caffeine in soft drinks, cakes, and other snack items. Some energy drinks contain ridiculously high amounts. Physicians have asked the FDA to require caffeine labeling on energy drinks.

6. Allow rBGH-free labels. rBGH / rBST is a hormone injected into cows to increase their milk output. The hormone has been associated with various health risks for humans consuming the milk. People should know if their milk comes from cows treated with these hormones.

7. Label Booz. Alcoholic beverages should be labeled as well. At a bare minimum, provide serving size and calories.

Click HERE to submit your comments to the FDA.

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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…

Dannon Activia

More good news for consumers. Dannon, manufacturer of 100 dairy products such as Activia, Light & Fit, DanActive and Danimals, will stop using milk from cows injected with bovine growth hormones (rBST / rGBH). The plan is to be 100% hormone free by the end of 2009.

From DairyReporter.com:

[Dannon] said the move is a result of consumer feedback. “This is a response to our market evaluation and consumer preference,” Dannon’s senior director of public relations Michael Neuwirth told DairyReporter.com.

“When General Mills make their announcement, we naturally got many questions. This is something we’ve been working on for some time but because there is no real safety issue here we’ve been quite low-key about it,” said Neuwirth.

Read the entire article…

What you need to know:

BST (bovine somatotropin) is a hormone cows naturally produce and found in their bodies. The more of this hormone a cow has, the more milk it produces. In the early 1990’s, an artificial growth hormone, rBST (a.ka. rBGH), was developed by agriculture giant Monsanto. While this seems like good news, when you mess with nature, there are always consequences.

The rBST hormone itself has no effect on humans, but the “consequences” do:
1. Cows injected with the hormone tend to be sicker due to inflammations of their much larger udders, and therefore receive more antibiotics. The antibiotics then find their way into your milk and your body.
2. rBST additionally increases the level of an insulin type growth factor in the milk (IGF-1). This, again, finds its way into the human body. Though in most cases our stomach acids digest it, sometimes IGF-1 gets into the bloodstream, and for some people this raises the risk of cancer.

Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, and the EU banned rBGH.

Dannon is an international dairy powerhouse, and owns about one third of the US yogurt market, tied with General Mill’s Yoplait. Having these two giants make the move will probably line up all of the smaller manufacturers as well.

What to do at the supermarket:

Until the end of 2009, buying organic is the sure way to avoid milk products from rBGH-free cows, albeit at a higher price.

On conventional products, you will not find a label mentioning the presence or absence of growth hormones or antibiotics.

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General Mills, parent company of Yoplait brand yogurts, announced this week that it will stop using milk from cows treated with rBGH (recombinant bovine growth hormone). The announcement covers the entire product line and will be fully implemented by August:

General Mills announced today that it has made the commitment to eliminate by August 2009 milk sourced from cows treated with rBST (recombinant bovine somatotropin), a synthetic hormone also referred to as rBGH, in the production of its category-leading Yoplait® yogurts.

Although the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), and the National Institutes of Health remain fully confident in the safety of products made from milk sourced from cows treated with rBST in accordance with current guidelines, Yoplait is taking the initiative to change its dairy sourcing strategy to provide consumers with the option to choose a category-leading yogurt with milk produced by cows not treated with rBST.

Read the full press release…

There are already smaller yogurt manufacturers that are rBGH free, such as Stonyfield, Nancy’s, and Cascade Fresh, but Yoplait is a much bigger and powerful brand to take this step.

What you need to know:

BST (bovine somatotropin) is a hormone cows naturally produce and found in their bodies. The more of this hormone a cow has, the more milk it produces. In the early 1990’s, an artificial growth hormone, rBST (a.ka. rBGH), was developed by agriculture giant Monsanto. While this seems like good news, when you mess with nature, there are always consequences.

The rBST hormone itself has no effect on humans, but the “consequences” do:
1. Cows injected with the hormone tend to be sicker due to inflammations of their much larger udders, and therefore receive more antibiotics. The antibiotics then find their way into your milk and your body.
2. rBST additionally increases the level of an insulin type growth factor in the milk (IGF-1). This, again, finds its way into the human body. Though in most cases our stomach acids digest it, sometimes IGF-1 gets into the bloodstream, and for some people this raises the risk of cancer.

Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, and the EU banned rBGH. The UN’s food safety body, Codex Alimentarius, has also opted not to endorse rBGH.

In the US, many smaller dairies decided not to use rBST. They also thought it would be a good idea to let consumers know about their decision.

In 1993, after heavy pressure from Monsanto, the FDA did 2 things:
1. approve the use of rBGH
2. disallow labeling of milks stating they are from cows free of rBST.

Despite this, organic milk and yogurt manufacturers have been stating more broadly that their products are hormone and antibiotic free, so the FDA cannot chew them out.

So Yoplait’s move, in response to consumer wishes, is a refreshingly good piece of news, even though it is most probably a marketing play rather than true concern for our health. Hopefully more manufacturers and grocers will follow Yoplait’s lead.

What to do at the supermarket:

Buying organic is a sure way to avoid milk products from rBGH-free cows, albeit at a higher price.

On conventional products, you will not find a label mentioning the presence or absence of growth hormones or antibiotics.

Get Fooducated: RSS Subscription or Email Subscription

Help us test our new food comparison tool: alpha.fooducate.com