Posted on 02/27/2014 4:56:42 AM PST by SoFloFreeper
Choosing healthier foods at the grocery store may soon be a little easier.
The Food and Drug Administration is proposing several changes to the nutrition labels you see on packaged foods and beverages. If approved, the new labels would place a bigger emphasis on total calories, added sugars and certain nutrients, such as Vitamin D and potassium. The FDA is also proposing changes to serving size requirements in an effort to more accurately reflect what people usually eat or drink. For example, if you buy a 20-ounce soda, you're probably not going to stop drinking at the 8-ounce mark. The new rules would require that entire soda bottle to be one serving size -- making calorie counting simpler. This is the first overhaul for nutrition labels since the FDA began requiring them more than 20 years ago. There has been a shift in shoppers' priorities as nutrition is better understood and people learn what they should watch for on a label, administration officials said.
"You as a parent and a consumer should be able to walk into your local grocery store, pick up an item off the shelf, and be able to tell whether it's good for your family," first lady Michelle Obama said in a press release. "So this is a big deal, and it's going to make a big difference for families all across this country."
(Excerpt) Read more at cnn.com ...
Amerika.
Oh, I forgot to add: the media applauds.
Currently, manufacturers get to choose their serving size. And ingredients that fall below a certain threshold per serving don’t have to be listed.
A lot of people, for example, are trying to avoid trans fats. And they assume that if the label says “0 trans fats”, there are no trans fats in it. That’s not the case. If the label says “0 trans fats”, that means that there are no more than 0.5 grams of trans fats per serving. So it’s not only possible, but quite likely, that when the manufacturer modified the product so that it now had “0 trans fats”, all they really did was lower the serving size.
One of the few legitimate government regulations is to provide accurate consumer information.
I’d add a regulation that says that in ingredient lists, all sugars must be aggregated.
Consider something like fig newtons breakfast cereal is much the same, as are many processed foods. What they say:
Organic figs, stone-ground whole wheat flour, dehydrated cane juice, dextrose, crystallized beet extract, maltose, corn syrup...
What they should say:
SUGAR (cane juice, corn syrup...), figs, wheat flour.
Alls I know is dat Michelle had bess be thinkin’ bout not puttin’ all dem WARNINGS in cursive.
Really? This is going to help the low-info Dem-voting welfare Mom with 4 b@stards in tow and no Daddies in the home to use her EBT/Our Tax Dollars, more wisely?
I highly doubt it.
Moms that already are feeding their families ON THEIR OWN DIME already know this stuff, Mooch! Those other Moms are going to continue to feed their babies a steady diet of Doritoes and Mountain Dew!
Right where you want them! What a bunch of smoke & mirrors. Oh, she’s sooooooo compassionate! Our MOST compassionate FLOTUS - EVER! *SPIT*
Go away!
They’ve been trying to make nutrition labels meaningful since the 1980s with little real substantive change.
The problem, as I see it, is that EVERYONE knows how to eat healthy. People CHOOSE not to eat healthy. Additionally, it’s EXPENSIVE to eat healthy. My wife and I buy our meats from a local butcher. $50 in meat feeds us for a week. We buy our produce from both local markets and supermarkets, and the cost of that produce is almost twice what we pay for meat not to mention milk, cheeses, yogurt, eggs, etc.
It’s cost prohibitive to eat healthy for most of the welfare moms. They’d rather fill their cupboards with boxes and bags of “instant” foods than spend the money necessary to make substantial meals for their families.
We garden, hunt, fish, raise beef and pork ourselves, keep laying hens, cook from scratch, etc. Makes a world of difference to the bottom Line.
I’ve always said that when I retire from what I’m doing now (managing a Garden Center) I’d like to teach people how to feed themselves.
Not sure I can do it in time to make one bit of difference, anymore. :(
Around the outside aisles in the supermarket - good
Through the middle aisles in the supermarket - bad
To with that philosophy and you are off to a good start.
Only way to shop! :)
yes--this is true... but i have found it to be less expensive than eating out... something that i fall into when i get really busy... last week i ate a salad at Panera Bread... the Mediterranean Shrimp with couscous (omgoodness--soooo good!)... with an unsweetended iced tea, it came to over 9 bucks... and that was the half-portion size of the salad... i also ate one day at Zoe's Kitchen... i had a chicken pita with the side of white beans... i actually bought two sides of the white beans to take one home with me... about 13 bucks! the side of white beans were over two dollars each...
so this week i decided i needed to get back to cooking my own food--which i love to do... and i cooked my own beans--tres cheap! i know when most people eat on the run, they eat cheaper stuff like Taco Bell, Jack in the Box, etc... but for me, eating on the run is Chipotle, Baja Fresh, Panera... expensive...
Not really. There was some room to fudge the numbers, but labeled serving sizes have long been based on a figure called the "Reference amounts customarily consumed," which was determined largely by the FDA.
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