Amber Healy, who writes for Food Chemical News, attended the Consumer Federation of America’s annual food policy conference this week. She took notes on a speech given by Jessica Leighton, senior science advisor to the FDA. According to her report (see note below), Dr. Leighton announced that the agency intends to make some important additions and changes to food labels:
A daily value for added sugars.
Calorie information in a larger size font; calories listed for the entire package (in addition to single servings) when its contents are expected to be eaten by one person at one time.
Graphic revisions to make ingredient labels easier to read.
The percent of key ingredients in parentheses after the ingredient name.
Warnings about the dangers of caffeine.
A final definition for the term “natural.”
These may not sound like they constitute a major upheaval but put them in context: the FDA first proposed the calorie initiatives in 2004.
Perhaps suspecting that the Obama FDA would unblock those rules, Coca-Cola is already listing calories per serving and bottle on its 20-ounce bottles–but the font is tiny.
Cheers to the FDA for these moves. And now, how about a definition of whole grains?
Footnote: I can’t give a link for Ms. Healy’s excellent report (dated September 27), which also covers the other talks on food labels, because Food Chemical News is a private subscription publication. It is also extremely expensive. For many years, I have been able to subscribe at a (still quite expensive) rate for academics. But the publisher has just canceled that privilege and doubled the cost to more than $2,000 per year. Its writers cover inside details of food policy in Washington not easily available to those of us outside the beltway, and I will miss it.
Amber Healy, who writes for Food Chemical News, attended the Consumer Federation of America’s annual food policy conference this week. She took notes on a speech given by Jessica Leighton, senior science advisor to the FDA. According to her report (see note below), Dr. Leighton announced that the agency intends to make some important additions and changes to food labels:
These may not sound like they constitute a major upheaval but put them in context: the FDA first proposed the calorie initiatives in 2004.
Perhaps suspecting that the Obama FDA would unblock those rules, Coca-Cola is already listing calories per serving and bottle on its 20-ounce bottles–but the font is tiny.
Cheers to the FDA for these moves. And now, how about a definition of whole grains?
Footnote: I can’t give a link for Ms. Healy’s excellent report (dated September 27), which also covers the other talks on food labels, because Food Chemical News is a private subscription publication. It is also extremely expensive. For many years, I have been able to subscribe at a (still quite expensive) rate for academics. But the publisher has just canceled that privilege and doubled the cost to more than $2,000 per year. Its writers cover inside details of food policy in Washington not easily available to those of us outside the beltway, and I will miss it.