Food Label: Good Reading For Good Eating

by Food and Drug Administration (FDA)

It may not have the power of a Pulitzer prize-winning novel or the luridness of a checkout counter tabloid, but the new food label still promises to make for good reading.

New regulations from FDA and the Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) of the U.S. Department of Agriculture see to that. They ensure that: Nutrition information will appear in the labeling of almost all foods. Labels will provide information on how the food fits into an overall daily diet. Labels will include information on the amount per serving of saturated fat, cholesterol, dietary fiber, and other nutrients of health concern to today's consumers.

Terms used to describe a food's nutrient content — "light," "fat-free," and "low-calorie," for example — will meet government definitions so that they mean the same for any product on which they appear

Health claims about the relationship between a nutrient or food and a disease that are supported by scientific evidence will be allowed for the first time

There will be many more products with labels to read because the regulations, for the first time, make nutrition labeling mandatory for almost all processed foods. Also, uniform point-of- purchase nutrition information will accompany many fresh foods, such as fruits and vegetables and raw fish, meat and poultry.

The new food label is reading that can be put to good use, too, because it's designed to help clear up much of the confusion that has prevailed on supermarket shelves. It also can help consumers choose more healthful diets. And it can serve as an incentive to food companies to improve the nutritional qualities of their products.

"[This isn't] just another government program," said FDA Commissioner David Kessler, M.D. "The new food label is an unusual opportunity to help millions of Americans make more informed, healthier food choices."

"We expect the labels also will provide more food companies with an incentive to improve the nutritional quality of their products," said H. Russell Cross, Ph.D., FSIS administrator.

The new labels will start to appear on products this year, although manufacturers have until May 8, 1994, to comply with most of FDA's new labeling requirements and until July 6, 1994, to comply with FSIS', which cover processed meat and poultry products. (FDA regulates labeling of most food products, except for meat and poultry products, which fall under FSIS' jurisdiction.)

FSIS' voluntary point-of-purchase nutrition information program for raw meat and poultry goes into effect then, too. Point- of-purchase information for fresh produce and raw fish has been available in some grocery stores since November 1991. (See "Nutrition Info Available for Raw Fruits, Vegetables, Fish" in the January-February 1993 FDA Consumer.)

Advertising is not covered by NLEA; however, the Federal Trade Commission has indicated it may apply the same criteria to advertising that FDA and FSIS do to labels.

A Look Back

The changes will mark the first extensive renovation of the food label since 1974, when FDA and USDA established voluntary nutrition labeling and began requiring nutrition information on labels of products that contain added nutrients or that carry nutrition claims. Other than adding sodium as a mandatory and potassium as a voluntary component to the list of nutrients allowed in voluntary nutrition labeling in 1984, the nutrition label has remained essentially the same all that time.

Nutrition labeling wasn't ignored during the interim, though, as Congress, regulators, and consumer and industry groups put forth ideas to overhaul it. Their efforts intensified as consumers became more interested in nutrition, and food marketing strategies began to focus on that interest.

That marketing trend represented a departure from usual practice, according to Ed Scarbrough, Ph.D., director of the Office of Food Labeling in FDA's Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition.

"The line from industry used to be: 'Nutrition won't sell food. It's price, taste and convenience,'" he said. "By the time we got into the 1980s, nutrition clearly was selling products. Industry recognized this and started making claims about the food."

That was both good and bad, Scarbrough said. On the one hand, it gave consumers more information about nutrition. But on the other, claims got pushed to their outer limits as manufacturers scrambled to gain a competitive edge for their products.

"Consumers reacted to that," he said. "They couldn't believe many of the claims being made."

At about the same time, the Surgeon General of the U.S. Public Health Service and the National Academy of Sciences' National Research Council released two reports that lent strong support to development of a new food label. These reports — the 1988 Surgeon General's Report on Nutrition and Health, and the 1989 National Research Council's Diet and Health: Implications for Reducing Chronic Disease Risk — concluded that evidence substantiates an association between diet and risk of chronic disease and recommended similar dietary changes.

Those recommendations reflected what many public health experts had been saying for years: for example, that Americans should reduce their intake of fat (especially saturated fat), cholesterol and sodium; maintain appropriate body weight; and consume adequate amounts of calcium and fiber. The National Research Council's report went so far as to recommend quantitative amounts for certain nutrients.

It soon became apparent, however, that the current food label did not offer enough information to help consumers follow those guidelines. That, coupled with often questionable marketing practices, led to the first serious effort to revamp the food label.

About the Author

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FDA is A United States government body that oversees medical devices, including contact lenses, intraocular lenses, excimer lasers and eyedrops. In the US, these products must be approved by the FDA before they can be marketed.