US updates nutrition facts labels

The US Food and Drug Administration has launched an updated Nutrition Facts label for packaged food.

The new Nutrition Facts label will include:

• an updated design to highlight ‘calories’ and ‘servings’ — two important elements in making informed food choices.
• requirements for serving sizes that more closely reflect the amounts of food that people currently eat. What and how much people eat and drink has changed since the last serving size requirements were published in 1993.
• declaration of grams and a per cent daily value (%DV) for ‘added sugars’ to help consumers know how much sugar has been added to the product.
• ‘dual column’ labels to indicate both ‘per serving’ and ‘per package’ calorie and nutrition information for certain multiserving food products that could be consumed in one sitting or multiple sittings. Examples include a 500 mL tub of ice-cream and an 85 g bag of chips. With dual-column labels available, people will be able to easily understand how many calories and nutrients they are getting if they eat or drink the entire package/unit at one time. For packages that are between one and two servings, such as a 600 mL soft drink, the calories and other nutrients will be required to be labelled as one serving because people typically consume it in one sitting.
• updated daily values for nutrients like sodium, dietary fibre and vitamin D, consistent with Institute of Medicine recommendations and the 2015–2020 Dietary Guidelines for Americans. Daily values are reference amounts of nutrients to consume or not to exceed and are used to calculate the %DV that manufacturers include on the label.
• a declaration of vitamin D and potassium that will include the actual gram amount in addition to the %DV. These are nutrients that some people are not getting enough of, which puts them at higher risk for chronic disease. The %DV for calcium and iron will continue to be required, along with the actual gram amount. Vitamins A and C will no longer be required because deficiencies of these vitamins are rare, but these nutrients can be included on a voluntary basis.
• an abbreviated footnote to better explain the %DV.

‘Calories from fat’ will meanwhile be removed, as research shows the type of fat is more important than the amount. ‘Total fat’, ‘saturated fat,’ and ‘trans fat’ will continue to be required.

Most food manufacturers will be required to use the new label by July 2018. The original Nutrition Facts label was introduced more than 20 years ago to help consumers make informed food choices and maintain healthy dietary practices.