5 Ways Nutrition Facts Labels Can Be Improved

By Sam Lewis

Public health advocates believe that in spite of recent proposals to improve nutritional facts labels, improvements can still be made to the dietary information of food and beverage packaging to make them more easily understood

Nutritional information labels are currently being overhauled in both the U.S. and Canada. While the information on food and beverage products does list ingredients and nutrient levels, the proposed nutrition labels of both countries do not let consumers know if a product is good for them. Both David Kessler — former FDA Commissioner — and William Dietz — former director of the Division of Nutrition, Physical Activity, and Obesity at the CDC agree that nutrition facts windows on food and beverage products could be improved in these five ways:

Disclose Overall Nutritional Value
Back in Feb, the FDA proposed an overhaul to the nutrition facts labels that placed a lot of emphasis on calories, serving sizes, and added sugar. But, according to Kessler, the proposed label has no structure that “actively encourages consumers to purchase food rich in the fruits, vegetables, and whole grains that are rightfully considered ‘real food.’” To put it plainly, most consumers won’t really know what these terms and figures indicate. “It's a bunch of technical terms — saturated fat, cholesterol, and dietary fiber — what do those mean?” says Michael Jacobsen of the Center for Science in the Public Interest. “Are these numbers high or low, good or bad? What do you do with it?”

Create More Concise Ingredient Lists
While the focus on added sugar is a plus for consumers, many consumers won’t know what ingredients are actually sugar without it being spelled out for them. Oftentimes sugar is listed as corn syrup, high-fructose corn syrup, dextrose, sucrose, honey, and a variety of other ways. “Tiny type, complex names, and confusing formats make many ingredient lists almost impossible to read or understand,” says Kessler. “If we instead defined all forms of sugar as a single ingredient, sugar might emerge near the top of many products' lists.”

Establish A Daily Value For Sugar
There is no question that the proposal to add a line for added sugars on nutritional facts windows is a benefit to consumers. This one line can distinguish naturally occurring sugar in a product from the sugar a company adds to a product for many reasons. However, Kessler believes the FDA should include a suggestion for how much sugar should be eaten each day. According to the FDA, this information wasn’t included in the proposal because there is no recommended daily value for sugar intake.

Add Nutrition Facts To The Packaging’s Front
In 2009, the FDA said it was creating nutritional standards that would need to be complied with before a manufacturer could place claims on a package’s front. That effort has puttered out as the food manufacturing industry says it’s working on its own standards, much to the chagrin of public health officials. According to the FDA, the agency is still creating standards for front-of-package labels, but is closely monitoring the industry’s efforts. Kessler believes front-of-package nutrition facts should list the product’s top three ingredients, total calories per serving, and the total number of added ingredients all in bold-faced type.

Provide Context For Labels
Many public health advocates told the FDA they would endorse a type of nutritional facts window that sorts ingredients by “get enough” and “avoid too much.” This was the second option the FDA considered in its Feb proposal. Sorting ingredients this way, rather than by percentage of daily recommended values is much easier for consumers to understand, according to Dr. Frank Hu of the Harvard School of Public Health. However, the food manufacturing industry disagrees, saying consumers should be able to determine what they should consume more of and what they should avoid from what the labels already display.