But we're not talking about the actual nutritional label that lists out the amount of each nutrient and gives you the calories per serving size like this:
We're actually talking about the front of the product. You know, where the producer says things like "Reduced Fat" or "Low Sodium" etc.
According to this article, a lot of manufacturers are pushing the line on how accurate those statements are.
Seems that it all came to a head in September of 2009:
The situation reached something of a head when in September of last year, The New York Times wrote an article about the Smart Choices program — a voluntary labeling program used by several companies in collaboration — and how the label that was supposed to indicate foods that were healthy choices ended up appearing on a box of Fruit Loops, among other less-than-healthy options.
That's actually funny. I wish I would have saw that in the grocery store at the time. I would have bought 5 boxes just to have a record that they were actually pushing Fruit Loops as "healthy" (what I think would have been interesting though is to see if sales of Fruit Loops went up because of the misleading food label).
The overall problem with front of the box food claims is that it doesn't tell the whole story. Okay fine, a product claims that it's "reduced fat." But when you look at the actual food label, you see that it's loaded with sugar, thus not as "healthy" as it would appear from what is listed on the front.
The goal that the FDA is striving for is to find out what information consumers are going to find helpful on the front of the product to make an accurate assessment of whether it's going to be healthy or not:
Various labeling schemes have been used and proposed: Some list just a couple key points of nutrition, such as calories, accompanied by a check mark or other symbol; some are a truncated version of the Nutrition Facts label that show key points, such as calories, fat, sugar and sodium; others include on top of that information a "traffic light" symbol (something that has been used with success in the United Kingdom) by each nutrient that indicates whether that nutrient is in the acceptable range (green) or not (red).
I'll be honest, I don't see this ever happening. There's no way the food manufacturer lobby would ever let this go through. If they all of a sudden put out a "traffic light" symbol on a product, who would ever buy that? You'd see sales and that company fall into an immediate crash.
Besides, the idea of originally putting the current nutritional label on products was to give people a better concept of the ingredients in them so that they can determine whether a product is "healthy" or "not healthy." That was supposed to help people make healthier choices. Well, I'm not sure that worked since our waistlines have gotten larger and larger by the day since they starting requiring that on foods in 1994.
In other words, people have the ability to read the current food label on the side or the back of the product, might even actually look at it, and are STILL buying the unhealthy products. What are the chances that if you put on the front of the product that it's bad for you that people are STILL not going to buy it?
There's a warning on cigarette packages warning against the risks of smoking, but does that seem to stop someone from buying them?
My suggestion? Stay away from foods that are in boxes. Meaning, buy fruits, vegetables, meats and nuts, and that's really all you need.
You don't need to worry about misleading food labels with my fitness routines that I offer that come with a nutritional guide that lays out the very simple process you need to take to lose body fat that doesn't have you worrying about whether a product is healthy or not healthy and it's incredibly affordable to try this program out at just $4.95 for the first month. Give it a shot.
www.leanbodytraining.com
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