What do you think of the new proposed food labels?

[lorraineb]

What do you think of the newly proposed food labels? Do you think they provide us with better information? I find that once I started trying to eat better, I started to look at them a lot more often. I think breaking the sugar into natural sugar and added sugar is good. What would you like the nutritional labels to have on them?

[kork13]

The changes appear to be reasonable & meaningful... But what I think should change about food nutrition labels generally is the portion sizing. Companies can call anything they want a "single serving" but that doesn't necessarily reflect reality. Just as an example, my morning breakfast cereal calls 1/2 cup of dry cereal "one serving." Realistically, I've never in my life poured a smaller serving than at least 1 cup. Some basis in reality would be nice.

[disneysteve]

The changes appear to be reasonable & meaningful... But what I think should change about food nutrition labels generally is the portion sizing. Companies can call anything they want a "single serving" but that doesn't necessarily reflect reality. Just as an example, my morning breakfast cereal calls 1/2 cup of dry cereal "one serving." Realistically, I've never in my life poured a smaller serving than at least 1 cup. Some basis in reality would be nice.

Part of the changes will involve the serving size. I have mixed feelings about that. From what I've heard, they are going to update the serving size to better reflect what people actually eat in one sitting. The problem with that is that most people eat entirely too much no matter what the label says a serving should be. I think that by increasing the stated serving size, it will just encourage overeating even more - "I only ate one serving."

[disneysteve]

I do hope they will alter the way they list the serving size to be more meaningful though. For example, on a bag of potato chips, they list the serving size in ounces. That's very nice if you happen to have a food scale handy but it would be a lot more useful to say a serving is "Approximately 10 chips".

[creditcardfree]

Part of the changes will involve the serving size. I have mixed feelings about that. From what I've heard, they are going to update the serving size to better reflect what people actually eat in one sitting. The problem with that is that most people eat entirely too much no matter what the label says a serving should be. I think that by increasing the stated serving size, it will just encourage overeating even more - "I only ate one serving."

My daughter and I said exactly that this morning when we heard about the changes on the news. If you now say a 20 oz soda is one serving when in reality it is 2.5 that doesn't help anyone understand portion sizes. That alone IS part of the problem in the United States. Apparently Americans can't do math now either.

[kork13]

Part of the changes will involve the serving size. I have mixed feelings about that. From what I've heard, they are going to update the serving size to better reflect what people actually eat in one sitting. The problem with that is that most people eat entirely too much no matter what the label says a serving should be. I think that by increasing the stated serving size, it will just encourage overeating even more - "I only ate one serving."

I would actually argue quite the opposite. By making the serving sizes reflect more realistic portions, calorie, fat, and other nutrient counts will be more accurate to what people actually consume. Instead seeing a 1/2-cup serving size of ice cream listed as only 200 calories (as I scoop up a 1-cup portion), a more-common serving size of 1 cup would be 400 calories. Seeing such a large number (for a small, simple dessert) could lead a person to go a bit easier on the portions.

If nothing else, more realistic serving sizes help people more-easily gauge what they're actually consuming. In the end, light eaters & heavy eaters will continue to serve themselves whatever portion sizes they like... but at least by using more typical serving sizes, they can be more aware of what they're eating.

ETA: Okay, having actually found & read a news article about the proposed changes, I'll say that I'm all for it. I pretty much agree entirely with what they're modifying, and although the food industry will assuredly gripe & complain about the changes, I think it'll be better overall for consumer awareness.

[rennigade]

If you're a person that needs to look at labels to determine how much to eat looking at the label is the least of your worries. Probably time to start exercising. Its pretty simple...if you're eating sugary junk food you may want to stop or really cut back. If you eat to the point of being stuffed...you screwed up. Next time when that feeling occurs stop eating...keep working on that until you eat smaller portions.

Humans are strange. They would rather have that mouth/brain pleasure for a short amount of time while packing on pounds and literally killing themselves. I eat junk food sure...but I also run and work out...and I do eat a massive salad each day with minimal salad dressing...lots of protein foods, fruits, veggies...and minimal sweets.

Fat people are going to remain fat regardless of labels. People who eat unhealthy are going to continue to eat unhealthy regardless of labels. Those people cannot be changed until they make it up in their minds to be changed.

\end threat

[bjl584]

It looks the same to me. If you take the time to actually look at the label and read it, then you can get pretty much the same info from either label. I'm a big label reader, but I don't see the new label making anything any easier for me.

[disneysteve]

It looks the same to me. If you take the time to actually look at the label and read it, then you can get pretty much the same info from either label. I'm a big label reader, but I don't see the new label making anything any easier for me.

I agree but I think the biggest change is going to be them changing servings sizes. As ccf said, if they start calling a 20 oz. Coke one serving because that's how most people drink it, I have a problem with that.

That said, kork makes a valid point that listing the total calories in the bottle vs. the calories in one serving and the number of servings in the bottle might be helpful. It will stop people from looking at the label and thinking, "Oh, this is only 100 calories" and then proceed to consume 3 servings worth.

On the other hand, rennigade also makes a good point. The people that don't care about their health, diet, and weight aren't the ones reading the labels ironically enough since they're the ones who need the information the most. I don't think redesigning the labels is going to change anything.