The Food and Drug Administration, which defines its role as “protecting the public health,” is now asking the public’s help in defining what “healthy’ means on food labels.
Is the FDA having an Aleppo moment? Didn’t the agency in May rework the Nutrition Facts Panel that appears on food packaging? Well, yes, but now it’s reconsidering the essence of “healthy” after last year telling the maker of Kind snacks that it couldn’t label some of its nut-filled bars “healthy” because their fat content exceeded the FDA’s low-fat guidelines for healthy. Kind, citing the bars’ nut-heavy content (and associated fat), protested.
Fat has revived its reputation from what were once fat-free recommendations to something more nuanced that suggests certain fats, including those in nuts, are healthful. People are now encouraged to eat more plant-sourced fats and omega-3 fatty acids from fish. U.S. Dietary Guidelines suggest limiting saturated fats found in meat and other animal products to less than 10 percent of your daily calories.
The new Nutrition Facts Panel includes added sugars (under a new “total sugars” category), vitamin D and potassium. Calories from fat are no longer listed.
“By updating the definition,” Douglas Balentine, director of the Office of Nutrition and Food Labeling at the FDA’s Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition, wrote in an FDA blog, “we hope more companies will use the ‘healthy’ claim as the basis for new product innovation and reformulation, providing consumers with a great variety of ‘healthy’ food label claims.”
Click here to register your “healthy” views with the FDA.
Or mail comments to:
Division of Dockets Management (HFA-305)
Food and Drug Administration
5630 Fishers Lane, Rm. 1061
Rockville, MD 20852
Identify comments with the docket number FDA-2016-D-2335.
Looking to change your eating habits due to a medical condition? Nutritionists at The Hospital of Central Connecticut can help.