FDA Plans to Increase Data on Food Labels
The Food and Drug Administration will propose major changes in food labeling to provide consumers with improved nutrition information, including details about the fat, cholesterol and fiber contents of the foods they buy, Health and Human Services Secretary Louis W. Sullivan announced Wednesday.
“The grocery store has become a Tower of Babel and consumers need to be linguists, scientists and mind readers to understand the many labels they encounter,” Sullivan said as he announced the Bush Administration’s initiative to counter the confusion.
Most of the changes in food labels--which have not been significantly revised in 17 years--will be proposed during the next year and should begin to take effect at the end of 1991, he said. Additional proposals will be released in 1991, Sullivan said in a speech to a conference sponsored by the Public Voice for Food and Health Policy, a major consumer organization.
During the next six months, Sullivan said, the FDA will issue proposals to, among other things, require nutritional labeling for virtually all foods, going far beyond the current requirement that applies only to foods that contain added vitamins, minerals or protein or that make a nutritional claim.
The only foods that the FDA will consider exempting include those of limited or no nutritional value, such as spices, herbs, coffee and tea, Sullivan said. Other products, such as foods produced by small operations like local retail bakeries, also are likely to be exempted for economic reasons, he said.
The FDA said that about 60% of all food packages now contain nutritional information, most of which is provided voluntarily by the manufacturers.
The momentum for an overhauling of food labels has been increasing in recent years, fueled by the demands of consumers, who have become more concerned with eating healthier foods, and by growing scientific data that has established a firm association between diet and certain illnesses, such as cancer and heart disease.
Similar changes were last proposed toward the end of the Jimmy Carter Administration but were abandoned by the Ronald Reagan Administration as part of its emphasis on deregulation. The last time food labels were changed significantly was in 1973, when the Food and Drug Administration established its current requirements based on a White House conference convened by former President Richard M. Nixon.
Food industry spokesmen said that they agreed with the Bush Administration proposals in principle but will oppose them because they do not prevent individual states from adopting their own requirements. As an example, they cited Proposition 65, approved in California in 1986, which requires firms to provide warnings on foods and other products that expose the public to cancer-causing substances.
Consumer groups applauded the proposals but said they feared it will take too long to implement them. Instead, they urged passage of food-labeling legislation sponsored by Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Los Angeles) and Sen. Howard M. Metzenbaum (D-Ohio) that will achieve the same end.
After the FDA rules are formally proposed, they are subject to a period of public comment before they are implemented. This process can take a year or longer.
Ed Scarbrough, of the FDA’s Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition, said that the agency plans to expand the new labeling requirements to fresh fruit and produce, although the mechanism for doing so has not been established. One possibility might be to require that pamphlets and other materials containing the information be provided with the produce, he said.
The FDA intends also to require the listing of saturated fat, cholesterol and fiber by grams, in addition to the number of calories that come from fat. This is expected to be especially welcomed by individuals seeking to reduce their blood cholesterol by limiting their intake of saturated fats, which stimulate the body’s production of cholesterol, and of cholesterol, which is found in animal foods.
Recently, a panel convened by the federal government’s National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute called for Americans to reduce their intake of saturated fats and cholesterol to reduce the risk of heart disease. It urged also that food labels be revised to enable consumers to make informed choices about what they eat.
Sullivan said that the FDA will develop procedures for ensuring standard serving sizes, an important issue to consumers, who often use serving sizes to make judgments about nutritional claims on products. Also, he said, the agency will update the U.S. recommended daily allowances of vitamins and other substances to reflect the latest findings, recently released by the National Academy of Sciences.
Later this year, Sullivan said, the agency intends to define such terms as “low fat” and “high fiber,” which are currently undefined and unregulated, so that shoppers will know exactly what they mean when they appear on a food package. Further, the FDA is considering proposals to require the listing of ingredients by percentage, rather than in order according to their predominance by weight, and the listing of specific food colorings, flavors and spices.
The agency is also considering requiring that all the various sugars in a product be labeled together. Currently, different sugars may be listed separately. Because ingredients are listed in order of weight, this can create the false impression that a product contains less sugar.
The FDA plans to begin consumer testing of alternative nutrition label formats later this year and will propose specific format revisions in 1991. In the meantime, FDA officials said, as certain parts of the proposals are implemented, information will be added to the current format.
John R. Cady, president of the National Food Processors Assn., which represents about 600 processed-prepared food companies and suppliers to the industry, said that the food industry supports the basic components of the proposals but only if the requirements are the same throughout the country.
“Why can’t this country have a single, uniform food-labeling system instead of a hodgepodge of conflicting requirements?” he said.
But Sullivan said the agency “must be sensitive to the fact that some states may be interested in additional labeling information.” Under the proposed regulations, Sullivan said, “states would be able to add to the information required, but they will not be able to subtract from the bedrock information mandated by the regulation.”
