 At a Bravo supermarket on a recent weekday evening in Brooklyn, N.Y,
shopper Jamilya Shroud-Garrett looks for a breakfast cereal for her
son. She points to a box of Cheerios, which has a banner-style label
bearing the message, "Can help lower cholesterol," and dismisses it as
ridiculous. "It's common sense. If you have high cholesterol, it's not
going to help to eat two bowls of cereal," she says.
Shroud-Garrett is an unusually conscious brand of consumer, not
easily swayed by so-called "front-of-pack" labeling — the carefully
worded, attention-getting health and nutrition claims (Made with whole
grains! All natural!), which appear on so many processed-food packages
and which the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is now seeking to rein
in. While Shroud-Garrett scanned the more detailed dietary information
contained in the Nutrition Facts panel on the side of the box, most
other shoppers who paused for an interview in the cereal aisle that
evening said their choices were guided either by past purchases or
front-of-the-box labels. (See eight common packaged-food labeling systems.)
Nutritionists and obesity researchers say such blind food-buying
habits have gotten dicier in recent years, with the explosion of
increasingly aggressive front-of-package labels and logos that are
designed to mislead, confuse and distract consumers. "People tend to
assume, [mistakenly], that what's stated on the front of the pack has
the explicit or at least the tacit approval of the government," says
Dr. David Ludwig, an associate professor of pediatrics at Harvard
Medical School and founder of the Optimal Weight for Life Program at
Children's Hospital Boston, yet many products' labeling efforts
actually flout government regulations.
As part of its effort to improve labeling practices, on Friday the FDA began asking for public comment
on "ways to enhance the usefulness to consumers of...information on the
principal display panel of food products ('front-of-pack' labeling) or
on shelf tags in retail stores." In particular, the agency wants to
know how consumers read and use such nutritional information, and
whether there's a way to standardize its presentation to help people
make better choices. Some observers say the FDA is readying what will
be the most extensive food-labeling reform since 1990.
Tricks of the Trade
Reform is overdue. Under current law — the 1990 Nutrition Labeling and
Education Act — all packaged foods must display nutrients and
ingredients in a consistent format. That law spawned the now familiar
Nutrition Facts label, which is printed on virtually every processed
food product in the Western world. The legislation also authorized the
FDA to officially define marketing terms such as "light" and "low fat,"
created guidelines for nutrient claims and set up a regulatory
framework for approving any health claims used on the front of
packaging. (See a quick guide to the FDA.)
But since then, food makers have devised all sorts of creative ways
to circumvent labeling regulations — and to confuse and seduce
consumers. One common strategy: to misuse what is known as the nutrient
content claim. A package of Dreyer's Dibs bite-size ice cream snacks,
for instance, declares that it contains "0 g Trans Fat," but fails to
mention that the product also has 28 grams of total fat and 20 grams of
saturated fat per serving (information that is available on the
Nutrition Facts panel on the back of the package). Regarding
fat-content information, federal law has an all-or-nothing stipulation:
if food manufacturers choose to tout trans fat information on the front
of the package, they must disclose the amount of saturated and total
fats as well.
Another standard bit of hucksterism is to add a micronutrient or two
to a food, then label the product "Rich source of antioxidants" or
"Contains added vitamins and minerals." Historically, foods were
fortified to compensate for nutrients lost during processing and to
curb malnutrition within the population. Today, with vitamin
deficiencies in the U.S. at an all-time low, the tactic is largely a
marketing gimmick. "Most of our nutritional problems are problems of
excess not deficiency," says Karen Glanz, professor of epidemiology and
nursing at the University of Pennsylvania, noting that fortification
claims distract consumers' attention from more important information,
including calorie, fiber and sodium content.
View the full list for "Figuring Out Food Labels"
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