Access to complete, accurate, and useful nutrition information can be
empowering for health-conscious consumers. When the Nutrition Labeling and Education Act was passed in 1990 and put into effect in 1994 to create a new food label, former US Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Donna E. Shalala deemed it would, “…Tell us the kind of information we need to make informed, healthy choices about the foods we eat.” Fast forward to January 1, 2006: the
updated food label includes even more details on most foods in the market today, particularly
trans fat content and the presence of ingredients that contain protein derived from the eight major allergens in food.
If you check the front, back, and side panels of food packages bearing the food label, you will notice that nutrition information is generally organized in three main areas.
- Nutrition Facts. This panel, found on the back or side of a package, contains product-specific information about serving size, calories, and nutrients; Percent Daily Value (%DV) based on a 2000 calorie diet; and if the package is large enough, a footnote with Daily Values (DVs) that provides a summary of recommended dietary intakes for important nutrients including dietary fats, sodium, and fiber, among others.
- Nutrition-Related Claims. Often located on the front of a food package, these consist of nutrient content claims that describe the amount of a nutrient in the food (e.g. “low-fat”) or health claims, which relate a food or food component to a disease or health-related condition (e.g. “Calcium may reduce the risk of osteoporosis”).
- Ingredient Statement. A list of ingredients found in the food product which are listed in descending order by weight, from the most to the least.
This article will focus on the trans fat and allergen labeling additions to the Nutrition Facts panel and the ingredient statement, respectively. Food Insight also summarizes key findings from consumer research on the perceptions, usefulness, and impact of the Nutrition Facts panel and explores future changes to the panel that may further enhance consumers’ ability to make informed food decisions.
Evolution and Purpose of Food Labeling
Since the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA’s) inception consumer demand for improved food safety, quality, and nutrition information provided the impetus for developing labeling regulations. Over time, these requirements have evolved to reflect public health concerns and to help consumers make more informed decisions by providing them with useful information.
One of the federal government’s early efforts to ensure food safety and quality for consumers was the passage of the 1906 Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act. It required the label of every food package to contain: the name of the food, its net weight, the name and address of the manufacturer or distributor, and an ingredient list for certain products. It also prohibited the placement of false or misleading claims—therapeutic or nutritional—on foods.
Subsequently, addressing nutrient deficiencies in the American diet became a government priority such that a system for quantifying the nutritional value and content of food was developed. By 1973, FDA and the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) established voluntary nutrition labeling. FDA also began requiring nutrition information on labels of products that contained added nutrients or carried nutrition-related claims. Until the addition of trans fat in 2006, the list of nutrients on the nutrition label had remained essentially unchanged since sodium and potassium were allowed in voluntary nutrition labeling in 1984.
As public interest in nutrition intensified and evidence of the relationship between diet and chronic disease became more conclusive, it grew apparent that consumers needed different information to follow dietary recommendations. Thus, the U.S. Congress passed the Nutrition Labeling and Education Act of 1990, mandating FDA and USDA to develop specific policy, which was finalized in 1992, requiring food labels to include the Nutrition Facts Panel by 1994. This process resulted in the following changes that were incorporated on the nutrition label:
- “Nutrition Information per Serving” was renamed “Nutrition Facts” and appeared in larger, more readable print. Nutrition labeling was required for almost all packaged foods.
- A new column of information, “Percent Daily Value,” was created to illustrate how a food’s nutrients fit into a 2000 calorie diet and to help consumers compare nutrient content among food products.
- The label was required to contain information about total calories, calories from fat, and other nutrients of public health interest such as saturated fat, cholesterol, and sugars. Information on nutrients found to be present in inadequate amounts in the diet (dietary fiber, vitamins A and C, and iron) was also required to be included on the food label.
- Information was reported for the standard serving sizes that more closely reflected the amount that people say they customarily eat.
Taken together, these changes were designed to enable consumers to compare and select foods so that they could plan varied, and balanced meals in moderate amounts—with greater flexibility.
Label Use and Implications for Consumers’ Food Choices
In November 2005, the International Food Information Council (IFIC) Foundation commissioned Cogent Research to conduct a quantitative Web-based survey of 1060 Americans’ regarding primary perceptions and behaviors regarding primary health-related issues. Upon exploring perceptions on health and nutrition information sources, this study found that consumers say food labels are playing an important role in providing them with information about food products. The survey also showed results pertaining to the Nutrition Facts panel:
- Next to the expiration date (68 percent), 58 percent of consumers state that they frequently seek the Nutrition Facts panel when they decide to purchase or eat a food or beverage. They also state that they are slightly more likely to use the information than the ingredients list (57 percent), although they use both for first-time purchases.
- Although a majority (67 percent) of consumers report finding the Nutrition Facts panel easy to use, about a third describe it as very difficult, somewhat difficult, or neither easy nor difficult.
- Nearly all of consumers (93 percent) say they use at least one piece of information from the Nutrition Facts panel, with more than half using up to four label elements. These are, in descending order: calories, total fat, serving size, and sugars.
These observations support findings from two earlier IFIC Foundation studies, namely, the 2004 Food Label and Calorie Research and the 2003 Impact of Trans Fat Label Information on Consumer Food Choices. According to the 2004 study, simplifying the information provided on the food label may assist consumers in regulating their consumption of calories. The 2003 research shows that consumers tend to rely on a variety of components such as calories, total fat, sodium, and saturated fat, to ascertain a product’s overall healthfulness and that singling out an individual nutrient can result in unwanted consequences in choices and in attitudes toward specific foods.
Future Nutrition Facts Innovations
To address the current public health problem of obesity, FDA is reviewing its present regulations and seeking comments on: whether calories should be given more prominence on the food label, and if serving sizes should be revised for products that can be reasonably consumed at one eating occasion. With regard to these issues, IFIC Foundation’s Food Label and Calorie Research suggests that consumers react more favorably to a larger and bolder calorie line on the food label, representing the entire single serve package as one serving. FDA is also looking at the effectiveness of using additional means to communicate the trans fat content of food and/or its effect on health, including a potential trans fat footnote; claims; and/or the Percent Daily Value for trans fat.
Currently, the Percent Daily Value is based on the 1968 U.S. Recommended Dietary Allowances. FDA is revisiting which numbers, or set of values, should be used to communicate this information to consumers.
It is anticipated that issues such as these will result in changes to the format and information on the Nutrition Facts panel components in the coming years.
For more information on these and other nutrition and food safety-related topics, visit http://www.ific.org.
