The FDA is on a roll this week! Fresh off of finally banning red dye No. 3 from food and drinks, the administration is now proposing a radical change to food labels. Well, not so much a change as an addition. The FDA wants simplified, front-facing labels on all food items that clearly indicate low, medium, or high levels of only three nutritional components: saturated fat, sodium, and added sugars. Those are the three ingredients, they say, that are most related to the leading causes of death and illness in the US, among them heart disease, cancer, and diabetes. So, will seeing that nutritional info in the front really deter Americans from buying certain foods? Here’s why the FDA thinks it will:
On Tuesday, Jan. 14, the agency proposed a new front-facing label for most food and drinks to help consumers easily identify healthier food choices. The labels would be called a front-of-package nutrition label and give “consumers readily visible information about a food’s saturated fat, sodium and added sugars content.”
Those three nutrients, the FDA said, are “directly linked with chronic diseases when consumed in excess.”
The proposed label — developed from a literature review, focus groups and an experimental study — would plainly show whether the food has low, med, or high levels of saturated fat, sodium or added sugars, and complement the current nutrition facts label.
The FDA states that “chronic diseases, including heart disease, cancer and diabetes, are the leading cause of disability and death in the U.S.,” further noting that 60% of Americans have at least one chronic disease.
“The science on saturated fat, sodium and added sugars is clear,” FDA Commissioner Robert M. Califf, M.D said in a statement. “Nearly everyone knows or cares for someone with a chronic disease that is due, in part, to the food we eat. It is time we make it easier for consumers to glance, grab and go. Adding front-of-package nutrition labeling to most packaged foods would do that. We are fully committed to pulling all the levers available to the FDA to make nutrition information readily accessible as part of our efforts to promote public health.”
Jim Jones, the FDA’s deputy director for human foods, added, “Food should be a vehicle for wellness, not a contributor of chronic disease. In addition to our goal of providing information to consumers, it’s possible we’ll see manufacturers reformulate products to be healthier in response to front-of-package nutrition labeling. Together, we hope the FDA’s efforts, alongside those of our federal partners, will start stemming the tide of the chronic disease crisis in our country.”
If finalized, the proposed rule would require large food manufacturers to add the label within three years, while smaller businesses would have an additional year.
Dr. Peter Lurie, the president of the Center for Science in the Public Interest, told NPR that many countries use nutrition labels only as a warning against food high in salt, sugar or fat.
The outlet reports that packaged food sold in Chile, for example, has a stop sign symbol on the front if the item is high in the identified nutrients. Since enacted in 2016, research found that consumers in the country purchased “significantly fewer calories, sugar, saturated fat and sodium than would have been expected had the law and its regulations not gone into effect,” per UNC-Chapel Hill’s Global Food Research Program.
Oh my Goya — the stop sign symbol is genius! “HALT! How much clearer can we be that eating this would be a consequentially bad move for the continuing functionality of your body?!” But actually, this addresses one of my first thoughts when I saw the FDA’s proposed label. It’s just like the nutritional info on the back, only limited to the three ingredients and therefore uncluttered, and would be on the front of packaging. But still, black and white text. I worry that visually, that won’t be enough to grab people’s attention these days. It might be more effective to implement the language of the people: emojis! Say 🙂 for low levels, 🥴 for medium, and 😱 for high. Or am I being too pessimistic about the state of reading and writing in America? There’s no denying, though, that the stop sign is an arresting symbol. You’d know on a gut level that you were crossing a road you shouldn’t, even before literally involving your gut.
Of course the next question is: will this even go anywhere? I cannot imagine food companies welcoming this infringement on their marketing, so big money would be lobbied to tank the proposal. And if there’s one thing I think Americans will fight for, it’s the god-given right to eat crappy foods.
PS — We have a deputy director of the FDA named Jim Jones?! I know it’s a different one, but let’s still keep him away from the Kool-Aid.
photos credit: Jack Sparrow, Kampus Productions on Pexels
here in the EU we have a traffic light system on the front so you can quickly tell at a glance if the product is in the red or green. it is really helpful when grabbing something quickly to pick the healthiest option available
I’ve always found it relatively easy to turn to the back of the package and read the label. There are already symbols for heart-healthy and most products label in front if they are low fat or low sodium. People just don’t take the time or don’t care.
It’s a noble idea, and maybe a few people will look at it and set the junk food back on the shelf, but if the “THIS CAUSES CANCER” label on the cigarette box doesn’t stop people from smoking then I don’t see this making much impact.
Wow I love to see the US government creating meaningful change in important ways to help its people feel healthier! 🙄
I mean, give people access to housing and create higher paying jobs. It’s well known that people who have less stress are healthier and happier and people who have access to healthier foods choose them. But if I’m struggling to pay rent, I’m tired, my body hurts from my physical job, I might still choose the comforting and easy “bad for me” option even with the label.
Smoking is a highly addictive self soothing technique often in response to some form of trauma. The more we talk about it (and other harmful self soothing techniques) as simply a personal failing, the less likely we are to see all of this as part of a system that harms us and needs change.
Apathy is an attempt at self protection.
It did help, though. Smoking rates declined dramatically through the 90s and into the 2000s. We went from 42% of the population smoking in the 1950s to only about 14% today. It wasn’t until vaping came out that we saw the risk climb again, and that’s partly because people assumed the public was smart enough to translate the risk of cigarettes to nicotine vapes, which they unfortunately were not.
This won’t fix the bigger issue by a mile (increasing cost of basic goods and healthier food), though, I’ll give you that. I suspect it’ll only get worse going forward, too.
I don’t see this being put into use. Big companies won’t want this .
@susan collins I agree – remember Goya’s love affair with trump? Yeah…this isn’t going anywhere. Nestle, General Mills, etc. aren’t going to lose money without a fight. And what kind of symbols are going to be on Diet Coke for instance? There’s a ton of studies about how bad their sugar substitutes are for causing cancer, high blood pressure, etc. This isn’t happening. Wish it was. Sure it won’t.
Nestlé and General Mills had to comply with labeling regulations here in Europe.
I think they will get over it.
I have no idea though what will happen to the FDA, once Felon47 gets his maladministration’s goons into place.
As someone who does read labels, there’s already too much stuff cluttering up the front of the box. The brand name, the image and logo, the amount / weight, then also often something like “made with whole grains!” or “lower in sodium!” and so on. Adding more isn’t going to help much, IMHO, not unless they really do remove a lot of what’s already there.
the USA has higher rates of obesity, diabetes, hypertension than any other country. Also at or near the top of the list in drug/alcohol abuse, smoking, tooth decay, child poverty and infant mortality.
I’m shocked when I visit the US and see how big people are, and how unhealthy. The proliferation of fast food restaurants, giant snacks, food everywhere and people eating ALL THE TIME.
At some point this should prompt some sort of introspection rather than the endless trumpeting of how the USA is the “greatest country in the world”. it’s the US’ *policies* that have wrought this. and it’s not getting better, it’s getting worse and worse.
If you look at the point of the US as “productivity” and corporate profits rather than, say, happiness or the well-being of our citizens, than the endless trumpeting might make more sense. Introspection isn’t likely. People often identify themselves by the brands that they choose — from Coke vs Pepsi or Ravens vs Cowboys, to Donald Trump. And yes, it’s getting worse and worse — by design.
By the way, did you hear that Coke is doing special commemorative bottles for Trump’s inauguration? Maybe McDonald’s will do something special too — along with scrapping some of their DEI “aspirational representation goals”. This reminds me of a cartoon I saw with a harried parent ordering “two Happy Meals and one Barely Coping Meal”.