The Food and Drug Administration recently announced that nutrition labels on packaged foods will soon require separate lines to distinguish added versus naturally occurring sugar in products.
Photo courtesy of health.harvard.edu
This means added sugars will get their own separate fancy line and will be expressed in both grams and as a daily value percentage of what is considered a reasonable amount.
This distinction is important as added sugar consumption is on the rise, as is diabetes, type 2 diabetes, obesity, and heart disease, and reducing added sugar intake is recommended to combat these disease.
Photo by Katie Walsh
Other changes to the label will be seen in the portion/serving size area (making it more realistic to reflect actual consumption patterns, because no one drinks 8 ounces of a 20 ounce soda bottle), as well as focus on different micronutrients, including vitamin D and potassium.
Photo by Katherine Baker
Like all things in policy, this comes with controversy and backlash from many, including some food companies, who claim that sugar is sugar to the human body no matter what and they don’t want to label added versus natural. Unfortunately for them, science has proven this untrue, and it looks like the FDA will indeed be pushin’ forward with the label change.
Expect to see all your labels different by July 2018. #blessed.