It’s been a busy season for the Food and Drug Administration’s venerable Nutrition Facts Label. First the FDA rolled out a pending overhaul of the label, which had remained more or less the same for the past 20 years. And earlier this month, the FDA announced the launch of the Nutrition Facts Label Online, a useful tool for consumers to make better use of label information. In a three-part package, we will highlight the new labeling and what it means for you.
Click here to read the first story in the series.
TODAY: FIVE THINGS TO KNOW ABOUT THE NUTRITION FACTS LABEL ONLINE
- What’s on the label? The first tab lets you select and learn more about the entries on the label, everything from calories to cholesterol, protein to polyunsaturated fat, serving sizes to sugars. Click on “% Daily Value,” for example, and learn that 5 percent or less of DV per serving is low, while 20 percent or more per serving is high.
- Ingredient list: Click here to see what’s in your food, listed in order of greatest contribution to the product’s overall weight. Ingredients with the greatest contribution are listed first, and so on all the way down to the ingredient contributing the least by weight.
- Nutrition glossary: Looking for the difference between refined grains and whole grains? You’ll find that and a lot more explained here. (By the way: Refined grains are products with the bran and germ removed; they don’t have the fiber content of whole grains, which are made from the entire seed.)
- Resources and downloads: These tabs allow you to find links to useful information from not only the FDA, but also the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Centers for Disease Control as well. The USDA’s Choose My Plate is a particularly engaging stop for children and adults alike to plot the right food choices. Downloadable information in PDF format includes breakdowns of such topics as cholesterol, fat, fiber, protein, sodium, sugars, carbohydrates and vitamins and minerals. Health teachers: There’s also a handy .zip file combining all of them.
- The bottom line: The Nutrition Facts Label online is designed to appeal to younger food-choosers in an interactive way that goes beyond words on the side of a can. It’s also designed to be mobile-friendly, which puts you only a smartphone away from making better-informed decisions on grocery runs.
