New Nutrition Labels

Love the serving size thing, who decided serving sizes in the first place?

psh I think it's like caution signs...people complained that they were getting fat and all because food lables were bad so the government is stepping in and making it easier for stupid people to know how much they are eating...I mean really a package of uncle bens rice is not 210 calories...a serving size of 1/2c is...read people..read.

It's like putting a sign on the toaster "caution when hot", this sort of thing prevents natural selection from doing it's job.

common sense does not prevail.

As well the serving size is not 1/2 a muffin it's probably 75g but that half a muffin is for those who don't like numbers.

Interested to see how the new labels look....

And it's in the US only...

I will be interested to see what is and isn't included...protien? carbs? fats? etc.

Interested to see how the new labels look....

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/27/health/new-fda-nutrition-labels-would-make-serving-sizes-reflect-actual-servings.html?smid=tw-share&_r=3

This article has a sample of a new label next to a current label.

I, for one, am pleased to see Vitamin D added as a required statistic. I have low vitamin D levels, even with doctor-prescribed supplements, so this would help me make good choices about higher vitamin D foods.

They have been talking about this for like 2 years. I think it is an improvement.

FYI, my personal favorite random serving size is on the I Can't Believe Its Butter spray, the serving size when I looked at it was 1/10 of a spray. I was like ?????

I'm not a fan of the serving sizes changing based on what people eat instead of what they should eat. Looking at serving sizes has helped me eat a 1/2 cup of ice cream instead of more and that's enough. And yes I sometimes do partial servings now but I struggle to think increasing what constitutes a serving size is to being something so random and changeable is going to help battle obesity. I'm thinking of how they used to recommend so many servings of fruits/vegetables a day... so now they'll tell people to aim for 4 if you get it from this container but only 2 if you get it from this one?

I'm curious to see them, but not sure I love the idea...I guess in some cases for me it's great...like cereal, I do not just have 1/2 cup of cereal. But I can't say the same for ice cream or a lot of other things...having the small portion sizes listed sometimes is what keeps me taking a small portion. On the news this morning everyone way saying "no one only has 1/2 cup of ice cream" and I was like...uh I do...all the time.

But often times the servings are just plain unrealistic. Most people probably would put ice cream in that category. It just irritated me that the generalization was made repeatedly that no one eats to those serving sizes. I guess I'm a weirdo.

I love that the information people need to be paying attention to (number of servings per container) is really visable though. I'm totally trained to always look at this, but I know a lot of people aren't (most people probably) and it's crazy when your bottle of juice, for example, is 2 or 3 servings. I think this change, along with the bolder calorie information, is enough to make the label more meaningful to people that don't usually pay attention. Leave the serving sizes alone.

I had not heard about the new nutrition labels, I'm glad you told me. I like Proposal 1. Proposal 2 seems a bit preachy, I don't believe grown adults need to be told what and how much to eat. Yes, I know about the obesity epidemic, but people can choose to be obese if they want. If we really wanted to change the labels for the better, we would do what the UK does: pick a measurement (I was told the UK uses 100 grams as a standard) and measure the calories from that. If we did that, we wouldn't have all of the confusion about things like Splenda, spray margarine, cooking spray, and diet soda. We also need to require companies to list ALL calories, even if it's under 5 calories.



Edited so you can see the picture!

does it really matter? nothing changes with the serving size thing.

its still telling you the exact same info, just with a different proportion

1/2 cup = 100 cals
1 cup = 200 cals

same as it ever was'd

That's true. But then I have to do math, not the people eating more than one serving.. :laugh:

I think that stats per 100g would be a useful addition. It would prevent zero calorie claims (100g of oil spray would have calories), and help consumers compare like foods, even if the packaging contains many servings, or the manufacturers have different serving sizes. It also allows the consumer to figure out percentages (eg - product has 3.4g protein per 100g = 3.4% protein). This can be hard to do from serving size stats alone if you don't have a calculator with you.

It's something that I find interesting when I eat foods with an American label here. It's so hard to compare between foods as the serving sizes aren't properly consistent, and there's no per 100g for me to compare the item to other like items.