USDA nutrition labels not working
By Adam Roy, Outside
Kind’s fruit-and-nut bars have won loyal fans among hikers, bikers, and climbers for their taste, simple ingredient list, and ability to banish hunger for hours. But now, the very thing that leaves athletes satiated — their fat — has landed them in the Food and Drug Administration’s doghouse.
The FDA recently warned Kind that four of its products, including its Kind Fruit & Nut Almond & Apricot, and Kind Plus Dark Chocolate Cherry Cashew + Antioxidants bars, were in violation of federal labeling regulations. Among a laundry list of mostly minor complaints: Kind had improperly labeled all of them as “healthy,” and used the word “plus” in the name of two. But instead of punishing Kind for its word choice, the FDA should be looking inward at the heart of the issue: labeling that confuses rather than informs consumers.
When it comes to food packaging, “healthy” is one of a handful of terms that the FDA keeps on a tight leash. For an energy bar or other snack to legally include the word on its label, it must have less than 1 gram of saturated fat and 3 grams of total fat per serving.