Labeling: Food And Drug Administration

http://www.fda.gov/Food/GuidanceRegulation/GuidanceDocumentsRegulatoryInformation/LabelingNutrition/ucm387533.htm

Summary: Food Labeling: Revision of the nutrition and Supplement Facts Label

Food and Drug Administration (FDA), responsible for protecting and encouraging public health by the regulation and administration of nutrition and supplement facts label and many more considering food safety and pharmaceutical drugs, has the authority to necessitate nutrition labels on foods according to The Nutrition Labeling and Education Act (NLEA) of 1990. The aim of NLEA was to set a comprehensible labeling, aiding the consumers to make better food choices and motivating the producers to enhance the nutrition profiles for the food they are producing.

On January 6 1993, FDA released regulations for food labeling such as ‘Mandatory Status of Nutrition Labeling and Nutrient Content Revision, Format for Nutrition Label’, ‘Daily intakes and Daily Reference values’ and ‘Serving Sizes.’ The rule was operative on May 8, 1994. As the nutrition facts label had became a major tool for people to make preferable choices, nutrition labels were not significantly changed until 2006 when FDA announced to make an addition of trans fat to the list of essential nutrients.

FDA proposes a revision for nutrition labels in order to improve and enable the consumers to make knowledgeable decisions on what food to eat.

The label will provide latest scientific and technical reflections about nutrition besides the supplement facts it will link to such as chronic diseases like obesity. The changes will made according to new nutrition and public health research, current dietary recommendations, citizen petitions, impact on other regulations and other relevant considerations. Major changes can be grouped into three

categories:
• Changes based on nutrition science
• Updates on serving size requirements and labeling
• Refreshed design

Changes based on nutrition science:
FDA is proposing to update the Nutrition Facts label in accordance with the new nutrition recommendations to ameliorate public health and reduce the risk of chronic diseases such as obesity, high blood pressure, cardiovascular disease.

Suggested rule is primarily based on new dietary endorsements, food and nutrition surveys based on nutrition intake from the National Health and nutrition Examinations Survey (NHANES) and consensus reports including nutrient intake suggestions from the institute of medicine. Specifically changes according to the new proposal would be the requirement of; assertion of ‘added sugars’, removal of ‘calories from fat’ and declaration of Vitamin D and potassium on the label. Moreover, FDA proposes to alter the units used for vitamins A, E and D from international units to metric measure (milligrams or micrograms).

Updated on serving size requirements and labeling:

The law demands that the serving size should be based on what people consume not on what people should be consuming. Since the current serving sizes are essentially based on Nationwide Food Consumption Surveys administrated in 1977-78 and 1987-88, it does not exhibit what people are actually eating nowadays. Therefore FDA proposes an update on reference values to set serving sizes more realistically. Furthermore, FDA suggests and alternative labeling for certain packages requiring labels to change to ‘single serving’ instead of ‘more than one serving’ because people tend to eat or drink

the product in one sitting.

Refreshed design:

When the revision of the nutrition and supplements facts label has been finalized, all foods that are currently required for a nutrition label will be affected. Therefore there will be a crucial cost to industry for an update of the nutrition labels. Altered labels will facilitate consumers with better reference values establishing a superior and healthy diet. The proposed revision would enable a potential benefit for the consumers amongst the US population. Updated nutrition labels will also play a significant role in the reduction in the risk of health issues such as coronary heart disease, certain types of cancer, obesity and diabetes.

FDA concluded that there would not be a major impact on the human environment therefore there is no requirement of an environmental impact statement.

Original vs. Proposed Label Formats