FDA Proposes Changing Food Labels

The FDA last week announced a proposed change to the food label that you see on all processed food in the supermarket.

Food labels would have larger-font calorie counts and more realistic portion sizes under an Obama administration proposal to significantly revise nutrition labels for the first time in two decades. The proposal, to be unveiled by first lady Michelle Obama at the White House on Thursday, aims to make it easier for consumers to decipher unhealthy ingredients in packaged foods. The new label would include a line for “added sugars” to distinguish from sugars that appear naturally in food. It would list nutritional values for vitamin D and potassium, which benefit bone health and blood-pressure control.

More details can be found here.

By: Stuart Shapiro

Stuart is a professor and the Director of the Public Policy
program at the Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy at Rutgers
University. He teaches economics and cost-benefit analysis and studies
regulation in the United States at both the federal and state levels.
Prior to coming to Rutgers, Stuart worked for five years at the Office
of Management and Budget in Washington under Presidents Clinton and
George W. Bush.