FDA muddles labeling

Since 1993, most packaged food sold in the U.S. has been required to include a Nutrition Facts label that lists the amount of fat, cholesterol, sodium, protein, carbohydrates, fiber and sugar in a serving, and includes some information on recommended daily intakes.

During that same period, Americans’ diets have gotten worse, their waistlines have expanded and public-health problems related to poor nutrition have grown.

Now the FDA is overhauling the Nutrition Facts label. Last year, it proposed several changes to the look and content of the label, among them a reality check on serving sizes and a disclosure of how much sugar has been added to a product. And now food makers will have to report the percentage of the recommended daily intake of added sugar that’s contained in a serving.

Paying more attention to sugar makes sense. The issue is that the agency is targeting only added sugar. But sugar is sugar – the kind that occurs naturally in orange juice isn’t intrinsically healthier than sugar added to a soft drink.

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When it comes to communicating nutritional information to the public, though, the emphasis on added sugars seems less than helpful. A study to be published soon in the Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics found that consumers had more trouble judging products’ sugar content when the added-sugar information was included. This study was funded by a food-industry group, but the FDA’s own research appears to at least partially back up this conclusion.

I think what has happened here is that the FDA has allowed itself to be guided by what nutrition experts are talking about among themselves, rather than what will actually help consumers make better decisions. After my experience with reading breakfast cereal labels, I’d be all for having the Nutrition Facts box tell people what percentage of a product’s weight is accounted for by sugar.

It might even be a good idea to require that this percentage be disclosed in big type on the front of the package if the sugar content is above, say, 10 percent. Wouldn’t it be fun if every box of Honey Nut Cheerios came with “THIS PRODUCT IS 32 PERCENT SUGAR” emblazoned on it? That’s what I’d call a nutrition fact. This added-sugar stuff is more of a nutrition muddle. •
Justin Fox is a Bloomberg View columnist who writes about business.

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