Nutritional Labeling: The Basics

Here's a fun fact for the day: On January 1st, 2020 the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is requiring the food industry to change its nutritional labeling (Nutrition Facts) to reflect recent scientific findings about obesity and heart disease.

What You Can Expect

Here’s some of the new changes to look out for the next time you're reviewing the Nutrition Facts label on your favorite products:

1. Serving size is being changed to a reasonable portion to be consumed in one sitting. So six potato chips will no longer be a serving size (because who can only eat six chips and walk away?)
2. Serving Size and calories will be in bigger font.
   
3. Levels of vitamin A and C will be replaced by levels of vitamin D and the minerals potassium, calcium, and iron.  Due to more common deficiencies in these nutrients. 
4. The % daily value will be explained as based on a 2000 calorie diet. 
5. Added sugars are required to be shown.  
6. Calories from fat will be removed, but the types of fat (which is more important) so you can still watch your trans and saturated fat intake.
   
   

For example a 20 ounce soda will be 1 serving instead of 2, and serving sizes on ice cream will change from 1/2 a cup to 2/3 of a cup. You can also view an example of the old standards versus the new standards here.

Boy, I feel healthier already! 

A Step in the Right Direction

The good thing is that the ability to monitor your calories and nutrition while snacking will be easier, these adjustments are here to help all consumers lead a healthier lifestyle, something we all should strive for in my opinion. So it is nice to see the FDA take a step toward tackling the food related illness epidemics of Heart Disease and Diabetes in our country, I hope we all can enjoy a healthier 2020 by being the best informed consumers. Now all we need is the same to happen for the alcohol industry, but that’s a different blog post entirely.