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.
Not sure if the FDA actually knows what’s healthy and what’s not.
First it was low fat, so sugar was added, which turns into fat, then it was low carb, then the gluten thing, which may be healthy for one but not another. And now the world is having a try with Paleo. . . the nutritionists change their mind about healthy eating every twenty years or so. Why not just post ingredients and let people decide for themselves?
Dog, As with most things, as evidence accumulates, there is a shift in thinking. The vast majority of nutritionists agree on 80%+ of stuff. In general, the FDA is pretty connected in what makes a healthy diet – though there are different schools of though regarding the fine tuning. The article was more about the effectiveness of labels and how best to inform the public so that we can make healthy choices. The sad thing is as a whole, Americans eat very poorly and we are the most obese country in the industrialized world – meaning too many Americans simply use false arguments about eating healthy.
Anyone who does not know that diets high in saturated fats and added sugar (not naturally occurring in the food item) are not healthy, are wildly uniformed or really dense – this has been understood for sometime. Fried foods is why the south represents on average the least healthy group of folks in the U.S. It has also been known that diets that include fruits and veggies, modest amounts of protein and healthy fats are generally pretty good. If you are not an athlete in training, or have a health issue (e.g., gluten sensitivity – which about 7% of the population has) where you need to focus on fine aspects of your diet, you can get away with staying away from processed foods as much as possible, eat wholesome foods, in modest portions and you will do fine.
Other things, minimize intake of beef and stay largely away from hamburger (though I love a high quality burger a few times a year), one egg a day is good for most folks unless you suffer a heart condition (when you eat breakfast out eat only a two egg omelet – I make one egg omelets before a long bike ride). There are some simply metrics of nutritional health that you can use to evaluate your health and stay on track – how you feel, waist size, weight, BMI (e.g., leanness), resting heart-rate, blood pressure. I encourage everyone to know what and why they are eating certain foods.
Rick
What a crock of s!^$#.
Ten years ago the vast majority of doctors and scientists would have agreed that a breakfast of whole wheat grain, one slice of whole wheat toast with promise margarine, nonfat milk, banana, fresh squeezed OJ was great.
I would be dead in six months if I ate that way. Whole grains and vegetable oils are the worst thing you can put in your body.
The tools of the corn & soybean lobby= American Heart Association sell their seal of approval to anyone who can pay the price. For Christ sake it’s on Coco Puffs.
I’m with you sunriser! No Fat, No Sugar, No Salt, (no caffine) equals NO FLAVOR!!!! (A German friend of mine said that. Dead from complications related to radiation poisoning) As a good friend of mine (recently deceased) always said “The grease is where the flavor’s at.” (No, did not die from heart disease, died from respiratory complications related to smoking unfiltered Camels for 50 years) But I agree, the FDA does not need a colonoscopy to see their innards. They already are suffering from a very deep rectal cranial inversion. All they gotta do is open their eyes and it will all become clear(er). Perhaps they will need to do a colon prep first. Oh, never mind, the colon prep will remove their cranium.
Three years ago I went to my first Dr. visit in 38 years and failed everything.
I went to all the Barton lectures and the Carson Tahoe ones as well. After reading up on the subject I decided to consume 100 grams of carbs or less a day. I eat as much saturated fat as I want and stopped eating anything with corn, soy or vegetable oil.
In a little less than a year I went from 205-217 pounds 180-186 pounds, blood sugar went from 345 to 108 total cholesterol dropped 74 points and blood pressure dropped 50 points.
The low carb diet didn’t work for most people because Americans love carbs. I can eat what ever I want in moderation but I do have to trade off.
Not the end of the world trading dough nuts for fresh strawberries and fontina cheese. Having my feet cut of and going blind from diabetes is the end of the world.
PS
I did add moderate exercise.
No I don’t read to the end of the label, because I don’t care about much of it. I glance at fat content and carbs. So according to them, the system doesn’t work for me, except that it does.