The goal of this, as well as the updated nutrition labeling, is “to provide consumers with information and tools to enable them to easily and quickly make food choices consistent with public health recommendations.” In fact, the updated nutrition labels were partly based on recommendations from the 2015 Dietary Guidelines for Americans that were released in early 2016. For instance, the guidelines called for a decrease in consumption of “added sugar”, and thus the updated nutrition labeling requires specifying the amount of added sugar in food products.
The guidelines also called for a focus on the type of fat consumed, rather than amount, which has caused some controversy in the past. In 2015, Kind bars were issued a notice from the FDA stating that they must remove the word “healthy” from their packaging because the bars contained too much fat — never mind that the fat was from almonds, a food almost universally accepted to have numerous health benefits.
Largely due to the short-lived, low-fat fad of the nineties, the definition of “healthy” included low-fat foods, regardless of the kind or source of the fat. Douglas Balentine, Director of the Office of Nutrition and Food Labeling at the FDA’s Center for Food Safety and Applied nutrition writes, “As our understanding about nutrition has evolved, we need to make sure the definition for the ‘healthy’ labeling claim stays up to date.”
The FDA is seeking comments from the public, food companies, and nutrition experts in order to determine the new definition of “healthy”. You can submit comments electronically here, or submit written comments to the provided mailing address. According to the electronic submission, comments will be accepted until January 26, 2017.
What do you think? What do you think the criteria should be to label a food product “healthy”? Let us know!
