The US Food and Drug Administration wants to change the way we shop.
On Tuesday, January 14, the agency proposed a new front label for most foods and beverages to help consumers more easily identify healthier foods. The labels would be called front-of-pack nutrition labels and would give “consumers easily visible information about the saturated fat, sodium and added sugars content of the food.”
Those three nutrients, the FDA said, “are directly linked to chronic disease when consumed in excess.”
The proposed label – developed based on a literature review, focus groups and an experimental study – would clearly indicate whether a food has low, medium or high levels of saturated fat, sodium or added sugars, and would complement the current nutrition facts label.
Photo of a woman reading a food label in a grocery store.
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The FDA states that “chronic diseases, including heart disease, cancer and diabetes, are the leading cause of disability and death in the US,” 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, MD, said in a statement. “Nearly everyone knows or cares about someone with a chronic disease that is partially a result of the food we eat. It’s time to make it easier for consumers to look, grab and go. Adding a nutrition label to the front of the package would make most packaged foods do that. We’re totally committed to pulling all the levers available to the FDA to make nutrition information readily available as part of our efforts to promote public health.”
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Jim Jones, FDA’s deputy director for human foods, added, “Food should be a vehicle for wellness, not a cause of chronic disease. In addition to our goal of providing information to consumers, it’s possible we’ll see manufacturers reformulate products to make them healthier in response to front-of-package nutrition labeling, we hope that FDA’s efforts, along with those of our federal partners, will begin to stem the tide of our country’s chronic disease crisis.”
If finalized, the proposed rule would require large food manufacturers to add the label within three years, while smaller companies would have an additional year.
dr. Peter Lurie, president of the Center for Science in the Public Interest, told NPR that many countries use nutrition labels only to warn against foods high in salt, sugar or fat.
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The outlet reports that packaged foods sold in Chile, for example, have a stop sign symbol on the front if the item is high in identified nutrients. Since it took effect in 2016, research has shown that consumers in the country are buying “significantly fewer calories, sugar, saturated fat and sodium than would be expected if the law and its regulations had not gone into effect,” according to UNC’s Global Food Research Program- Chapel Hill.
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The FDA also recently announced that it is banning red no. 3, a common food coloring that appears in drinks, candy, snacks and more, because of its cancer risk.
“The FDA cannot approve a food additive or color additive if it is found to cause cancer in humans or animals,” Jones said in a statement. “Evidence Shows Cancer in Male Laboratory Rats Exposed to High Levels of FD&C Red No. 3.”
The move comes more than a year after California banned the ingredient – which is already banned in the European Union.
Categories: Trends
Source: HIS Education