Nutrition Label Facts: Greet Them With Skepticism
Up to the late 1960s, there was little information on food labels to identify the nutrient content of the food. From 1941 to 1966, when information on the calorie or sodium content was included on some food labels, those foods were considered by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to be for “special dietary uses.”
At that time meals were generally prepared at home from basic ingredients and there was little demand for nutritional information. However, as increasing numbers of processed foods came into the marketplace, consumers requested information that would help them understand the products they purchased. In response to this dilemma, a recommendation of the 1969 White House Conference on Food, Nutrition, and Health was that FDA consider developing a system for identifying the nutritional qualities of food. (National Academies Press).
Today most foods have nutrition labels but the problem hasn’t been solved because people are being misled by government standards. Consumers demand nutrition information and that should include transparency about what they’re eating.
Our governments tell us that packaged and canned goods are accurately "reflecting new scientific information, including the link between diet and chronic diseases. But are they? Here’s the truth about what you read on both U.S. and Canadian nutrition labels!
U.S. Nutrition Labels
In 2020, the U.S. underwent a remake of their nutrition label, with some changes. Outwardly fancy, they do little to change consumer perception, nor some shady manufacturing habits.
Calories - the amount of calories are displayed in a larger, bolder font size. This is insignificant because studies show that only 9 percent of consumers read calorie counts on food labels. However, comparing calories (from the nutrition label) and the type of food (from the ingredient label), you’ll see that not all calories are created equal. Two different ingredients may have the same calorie value, but be different in nutritional value. One ingredient might get its calories almost entirely from added sugar, while the others’ calories are from protein. And keep in mind that nutritional labels can be up to 20% inaccurate, according to FDA guidelines.