FDA redesigns nutrition panel

Pros: Tries to make it more obvious that the information is for A SERVING and not the whole damned container. Includes Vitamin D and potassium. Finally stops bothering people with the "Calories from fat" nonsense.

Cons: The percentages on the left make me twitchy. Protein is not at the top where it belongs.

It has always been obvious that it was for a serving and serving size was always listed, people just have to read it. And calories from fat are relevant to some people.

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/new-fda-nutrition-labels-may-change-your-food-2014-02-27?link=MW_home_latest_news

But it could also have a darker side. Ronald Bazar, author of “Your Perfect Diet” thinks that “the food biz will do what it can to maintain sales, so no doubt the effect could be smaller sizes and the same price.” Indeed, the new labeling could cost the food industry an estimated $2 billion to carry out, so they have an extra incentive to maintain profit margins.

And they will do what they need to do to maintain profit margins.

Great move to replace vitamin C and vitamin A with iron and potassium! Since when did we ever have to worry about those first two in the great old U S of A

What I like
- Potassium amount is mandatory
- Vitamin D amount is mandatory
- Added Sugars denoted
- Fat Calories no longer called out that would give the impression that fat=bad.
- Font changes that highlight calorie count and %DV.
- The table at the bottom based on 2000 and 2500 calories per day goes away. This is nearly useless

what I don't like
- Implication that non-Added Sugars is "OK".
- Still rounding to nearest 5 calories, which is stupid for things like artificial sweeteners, which influence diet drinks
- I wish it incorporated kJ and kcal energy amounts.

Approved !

Does anyone know when everything will take effect ?

I don't get this. I'm not American, so please forgive me if it is obvious! But I have to ask, because I've been trying to understand for a long time. Why isn't the focal point values pr 100 grams, wouldn't it make comparing different items easier? The serving size is what the user - or, the manufacturer - decides, or is it standardized in any way? And how do you use the %DV numbers, not that everybody is on a 2000 calories diet at all time...?

The simple answer is... for no good reason! I WISH they just did things per 100 grams so it'd make everything easy, but we have a weird phobia of the metric system here. :ohwell:

I wish they did too. I especially hate when cereals are different serving sizes on different boxes.

Not only that, but every grocery store I've been in has those "unit cost" labels but they never use the same units for anything. So the medium sized box of cereal is listed as "16.3¢ per ounce" and the large box of the same brand is listed as "$2.28 per pound."

No kidding. But, if you could do direct comparisons, you could easily see which one was cheaper, and then they wouldn't be taking more of your monies...

Here is my only real issue about the redesign:

Putting percentages first is out of context for everyone.

As a teacher of technical writing I am always telling my students that people need to know the main idea before we give them details. The "what" is the main idea here. What does this product contain that is good for me (or bad for me)?

We all like the information about total number of calories a serving and serving size at the top and easy to read because this is main idea: if we eat 1/4 a cup of trail mix it will be 160 calories. Why many of us don't like the left column with percentages is because it does not follow the rules.

Good technical writing theory would state that the most important information should come first, starting with what. So calories and serving size should obviously be first. What is next, if we do it by what people value, is going to be debated. However, if you go by FDA suggestions it should be carbohydrate, fat and protein information followed by nutrients our bodies need, and then at the end things we need to limit.

This suggestion would put salt and sugar at the very bottom of the panel making it easy to find. Generally speaking I will not put back an item for not containing enough of a vitamin or mineral but I will put it back for having too much salt, sugar or trans fat.

While, I can deal with whatever package design they throw at me and applaud the bigger font size (my husband often can't read box labels and it will be handy for him), it will be mildly depressing if I can use labels as an example in class of what not to do.

Disagree. It will take me a while to get used to it. :ohwell:

ETA: not to mention increasing food costs even more...

Costs??

Right. They will have to redesign labels. You think the money fairy is paying for it?

The fda designed it. Food companies redesign packages constantly. This is more than negligible in terms of cost, and it gives more info.

Yes and another step in the direction of education.

Right, because $2 billions dollars is nothing. Food isn't expensive. These aren't the droids you're looking for.

Wendy... these changes don't take effect for two years. There is plenty of time for corporations to make adjustments in the capital expenditure to accomodate this change. I'm not saying it won't cost anything, but it's not as devastating as you might think. From an operations standpoint, it will be a bit of pain, but like was previously mentioned, package redesigns aren't unheard of, and therefore, not something they can't deal with. It's not like they have to roll out new nutrition panels next week. Now THAT would cost a fortune!

Disagree. It will take me a while to get used to it. :ohwell:

ETA: not to mention increasing food costs even more...

Costs??

Right. They will have to redesign labels. You think the money fairy is paying for it?

The fda designed it. Food companies redesign packages constantly. This is more than negligible in terms of cost, and it gives more info.

Yes and another step in the direction of education.

Right, because $2 billions dollars is nothing. Food isn't expensive. These aren't the droids you're looking for.

Wendy... these changes don't take effect for two years. There is plenty of time for corporations to make adjustments in the capital expenditure to accomodate this change. I'm not saying it won't cost anything, but it's not as devastating as you might think. From an operations standpoint, it will be a bit of pain, but like was previously mentioned, package redesigns aren't unheard of, and therefore, not something they can't deal with. It's not like they have to roll out new nutrition panels next week. Now THAT would cost a fortune!

Oh, I did mention that earlier. But let's not pretend that it's negligible. When the original labels were introduced, it increased food prices and put some small companies out of business. A friend of mine nearly went out of business. The two year time frame will help, but that only means the cost will be spread out over time. It doesn't mean that there will be no cost at all.

And saying "package redesigns aren't unheard of" is also a far cry from OP's claims that it happens "constantly." Also, the $2B figure is from the FDA, which is probably grossly underestimated, though we won't know for sure until we see the market effects,

You should check out the Market Watch link I posted earlier. It was a good list of the pros and cons for consumers, I think.

Disagree. It will take me a while to get used to it. :ohwell:

ETA: not to mention increasing food costs even more...

Costs??

Right. They will have to redesign labels. You think the money fairy is paying for it?

The fda designed it. Food companies redesign packages constantly. This is more than negligible in terms of cost, and it gives more info.

Yes and another step in the direction of education.

Right, because $2 billions dollars is nothing. Food isn't expensive. These aren't the droids you're looking for.

Wendy... these changes don't take effect for two years. There is plenty of time for corporations to make adjustments in the capital expenditure to accomodate this change. I'm not saying it won't cost anything, but it's not as devastating as you might think. From an operations standpoint, it will be a bit of pain, but like was previously mentioned, package redesigns aren't unheard of, and therefore, not something they can't deal with. It's not like they have to roll out new nutrition panels next week. Now THAT would cost a fortune!

Oh, I did mention that earlier. But let's not pretend that it's negligible. When the original labels were introduced, it increased food prices and put some small companies out of business. A friend of mine nearly went out of business. The two year time frame will help, but that only means the cost will be spread out over time. It doesn't mean that there will be no cost at all.

And saying "package redesigns aren't unheard of" is also a far cry from OP's claims that it happens "constantly." Also, the $2B figure is from the FDA, which is probably grossly underestimated, though we won't know for sure until we see the market effects,

You should check out the Market Watch link I posted earlier. It was a good list of the pros and cons for consumers, I think.

Not sure why I'm even weighing in on this, but when the original label was required, it would require a redesign of the entire package because it has to incorporate a large box of information, and everything used to be in that space had to be put somewhere else. Swapping some information around in a box that is the same size will be much more cost effective. It will take some redesign, but should be much cheaper than the initial change.

Great changes. Much more readable and calorie content as well as servings per container are now featured much more prominently.

EDIT: Potassium content is now mandatory!! This is probably more significant than the panel redesign.

Just my 2 cents and all, but...

-there's no need to make the calories *that* large. They weren't difficult to find before. On the plus side, I'm glad they got rid of the calories from fat. Seemed useless.

-On the subject of seeming useless, just ditch the daily values for macros and cholesterol, etc. I'm fine with them for micros, despite a lack of context.

-Yay potassium!

-Ironically, the change to the servings per container actually makes it harder to locate because it just blends more easily into the Nutrition Facts label at the top.

-remove the serving per amount just above the annoyingly large Calories label. I was fine with Amounts Per Serving.

-This probably isn't huge, but I'd kind of like to see soluble and insoluble fiber broken out.

YESSSSSSS!!!! that made my day:flowerforyou:

I hate the games companies play with the serving size. It needs to be standardized.

Now, if we could just get restaurants on the same system.