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America's FDA Wants to Update Its Definition of 'Healthy'. The Food Industry Do...

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America's FDA Wants to Update Its Definition of 'Healthy'. The Food Industry Doesn't

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America's FDA Wants to Update Its Definition of 'Healthy'. The Food Industry Doesn't (msn.com) 96

Posted by EditorDavid

on Monday March 06, 2023 @03:34AM from the healthy-today-gone-tomorrow dept.

America's public health-protecting Food and Drug Administration wants to update its definition of "healthy" for purposes of product labeling.

But the Washington Post reports dozens of food manufacturers are now "claiming the new standards are draconian and will result in most current food products not making the cut, or in unappealing product reformulations."

Under the proposal, manufacturers can label their products "healthy" only if they contain a meaningful amount of food from at least one of the main food groups such as fruit, vegetable or dairy, as recommended by federal dietary guidelines. They must also adhere to specific limits for certain nutrients, such as saturated fat, sodium and added sugars.

It's the added sugar limit that has been the sticking point for many food executives. The FDA's previous rules put limits around saturated fat and sodium but did not include limits on added sugars.

The Consumer Brands Association, which represents 1,700 major food companies from General Mills to Pepsi, wrote a 54-page comment to the FDA in which it stated the proposed rule was overly restrictive and would result in a framework that would automatically disqualify a vast majority of packaged foods.... The proposed rule, if finalized, they said, would violate the First Amendment rights of food companies and could harm both consumers and manufacturers. The Sugar Association has an issue with the added sugar limit; Campbell Soup is more focused on that sodium....

Virtually every part of the food industry appeared disgruntled (here are the 402 comments about the proposed rule). Baby food company Happy Family Organics said the proposed rule probably would lead to an unintended exclusion of some nutrient-rich products. And the American Cheese Society took a more philosophical approach, saying the word "healthy" isn't that helpful on a label and should be used in a complete diet or lifestyle context rather than in a nutrient or single food-focused context.

The FDA estimates that up to just 0.4% of people who try to follow their guidelines would be swayed by the word "healthy" in their long-term food-purchasing decisions, according to the article. It's a position supported by a research paper in the Journal of Public Policy and Marketing analyzing hundreds of international studies on the effectiveness of front-of-package nutrition labeling.

"The authors found that the most effective means of conveying nutrition information is a graphic warning label, as has been adopted in Chile, Peru, Uruguay, Mexico and Israel. In Chile, black warning labels shaped like stop signs are required for packaged food and drinks that exceed, per 100 grams: 275 calories, 400 milligrams of sodium, 10 grams of sugar or four grams of saturated fats."

  • by GigaplexNZ ( 1233886 ) on Monday March 06, 2023 @03:41AM (#63346151)

    But the Washington Post reports dozens of food manufacturers are now "claiming the new standards are draconian and will result in most current food products not making the cut

    That's kind of the point. If it's not healthy it shouldn't be branded as healthy. Food has too much sugar.

    The proposed rule, if finalized, they said, would violate the First Amendment rights of food companies and could harm both consumers and manufacturers. The Sugar Association has an issue with the added sugar limit

    Unhealthy food harms consumers. And of course the Sugar Association would have an issue with the sugar limit, just as tobacco companies had issues when governments started cracking down on that.

    • It's actually depressing thinking of how this will almost certainly end up: The food industry will either get the changes stopped, or if not then watered down to the point where they're meaningless - see the Snake Oil Protection Act, a.k.a. Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act, for a prior example of this, and the food industry is much bigger than the snake oil industry.
      • Re:

        Try to be a little more optimistic, and write your congress-critters to show your support of this initiative. Maybe drop $1 in the envelope, so that you know they'll at least open your letter and accidentally read some of it. (They can smell money, they'll find it)

        In defense of the FDA, they were able to enforce the Nutrition Facts labels, and food companies definitely did not want at the time either. It's not completely unreasonable to think they'll push this new label requirement through as well, despite

    • by geekmux ( 1040042 ) on Monday March 06, 2023 @04:43AM (#63346277)

      The proposed rule, if finalized, they said, would violate the First Amendment rights of food companies and could harm both consumers and manufacturers. The Sugar Association has an issue with the added sugar limit

      Unhealthy food harms consumers. And of course the Sugar Association would have an issue with the sugar limit, just as tobacco companies had issues when governments started cracking down on that.

      I guess i'm still trying to understand the whole First Amendment "defense" of food companies. What, they're arguing that you're taking away their ability to lie and deceive on a food label? Since when does that Right override the obligation of Truth in Advertising?

      Just because they've corrupted the legal system in their favor making even class-action lawsuits pointless and worthless doesn't mean they should be allowed to peddle harm.

      • I guess i'm still trying to understand the whole First Amendment "defense" of food companies. What, they're arguing that you're taking away their ability to lie and deceive on a food label? Since when does that Right override the obligation of Truth in Advertising?

        Just because they've corrupted the legal system in their favor making even class-action lawsuits pointless and worthless doesn't mean they should be allowed to peddle harm.

        It is the same defense Fox "News" is using in the Dominion vs Fox News lawsuit. Dominion has LOTS of evidence of the hosts and Murdoch in private E-Mails and text messages clearly stating that the "stop the steal" stuff is nonsense and then on air promoting it as true because they make more money that way.

        Personally I've been trying to cut out sugar for months and as I got serious about it and started looking at the labels more thoroughly even on things I thought I knew had no sugar (like bread) I find it is almost impossible to avoid due to being in almost everything. Even when you do find foods without sugar (or just minimized compared to others) you have to really search and make sure you buy the right products as they often aren't labeled clearly as no sugar (added).

        One of the reasons for the added sugar is when you get too much sugar your body is tricked into signalling that you are hungry even when you aren't. Which explains why obesity is so common. Have to make sure everyone is hungry for no good reason to up your sales and to hell with peoples health.

        • It's actually not that hard to fine things without sugar, it's just that you likely have normalized purchasing items-- that you normally eat every day--which happen to contain sugar. It's like when your wife gets pregnant and suddenly you start realizing that everywhere you go there's pregnant ladies. When you find a selection of items that are low sugar you begin to find them everywhere. Just depends on which blinders you have on.
        • Re:

          There's a difference between saying what you want about something not directly relevant to you (Fox News wasn't running the election) and making false claims in the advertising of your product.

          There have always been restrictions about false advertising.

        • Re:

          Sugar and starch are more addictive than heroin. The free speech rubric is total bullshit. As mentioned elsewhere, the US Congress won't budge so long as the campaign contributions from Carbs United continue to roll in.

          No wonder there's no motivation to pay for the results of diabetes and heart disease on the health care side, the double-edged sword.

          What's worse is that American Obesity is contagious, and the rest of the world finds the addiction irresistible, too. It's like the opium wars, with a different

        • Re:

          Personally I've been trying to cut out sugar for months and as I got serious about it and started looking at the labels more thoroughly even on things I thought I knew had no sugar (like bread) I find it is almost impossible to avoid due to being in almost everything. Even when you do find foods without sugar (or just minimized compared to others) you have to really search and make sure you buy the right products as they often aren't labeled clearly as no sugar (added).

          You are correct, sugar in some form i

        • I can't help but notice the strange turn we've taken since the 2004 election where progressives were arguing that voting machines were rigged. Hell, they were doing that right here on slashdot, often and loudly.

          Personally I've never had an issue either way as my home state has never used those.

    • Re:

      Too much sugar, salt, and saturated fats. Unfortunately consumers are trained to expect such over-saturation and would perceive food without it as bland.

      • Re:

        Too much sugar, salt, and saturated fats. Unfortunately consumers are trained to expect such over-saturation and would perceive food without it as bland.

        And more studies are showing that saturated fats may NOT be as associated with heart disease [nih.gov] as it used to be thought.

        A lot of the misconceptions we have on fats == bad came from Ancel Keys and his claims of carbs good/fat bad back in the 50's...along with the Sugar industries publishing of misleading studies.

        That led to the horrible recommended food py

    • Re:

      Have you weighed damage to consumers from food vs. damage from all-encompassing deep-fingered government?

      No, seriously.

      Hahah, no, seriously.

  • The new industry approved guidelines now state added cocaine is very healthy. Also any and all other super addictive substances. If you're not feeding your baby heroin laced baby formula, are you even a good parent or decent human being? The answer is no.
  • "the proposed rule was overly restrictive and would result in a framework that would automatically disqualify a vast majority of packaged foods...."

    I am under the impression that the vast majority of packaged foods are not, in fact, healthy.

    • by geekmux ( 1040042 ) on Monday March 06, 2023 @06:37AM (#63346395)

      "the proposed rule was overly restrictive and would result in a framework that would automatically disqualify a vast majority of packaged foods...."

      I am under the impression that the vast majority of packaged foods are not, in fact, healthy.

      Yes, but that's clearly not good enough. They want to secure the ability to lie and deceive to maximize profit.

    • More motivation to do the cooking in your kitchen, not in factories:
      https://theconversation.com/ul... [theconversation.com]

      âoeThe effects of ultraprocessed foods are quite clear. The reasons for the effects are not yet known,â Nestle continued. âoeIt would be nice to know why, but until we find out, itâ(TM)s best to advise eating ultraprocessed foods in as small amounts as possible
      Gotta mean something coming from the mouth of world's largest ultraprocessor: https://edition.cnn.com/2022/0... [cnn.com]

      Also, I foun

    • I mean, a lot of it is frozen or canned food. It's often made unhealthy to increase the addictive properties and make you want to eat more. Adding salt & sugar does that. It also lets them use much lower quality ingredients without you realizing.

      But is that really necessary, and if they couldn't get away with calling unhealthy food "healthy" would they be forced to stop the practice?

      Americans work more hours than the Japanese. We're not getting away from pre-packaged foods without a radical shif
  • We have this system of highlighting the presence of unhealthy ingredients in products on our supermarket shelves. It's sad how all the nice stuff gets lots of red marks...;)

    https://usercontent1.hubstatic... [hubstatic.com]

    • 'But the Washington Post reports dozens of food manufacturers are now "claiming the new standards are draconian and will result in most current food products not making the cut, or in unappealing product reformulations."'

      That's exactly right: most "food products" are unhealthy or downright dangerous.

      On the other hand, food itself is healthy. Most of it. Meat, eggs, fish, dairy (for those of us who can digest it), and green leafy vegetables - plus root vegetables for those who need the calories. Fruit is best thought of as "Nature's candy" - nice as a treat occasionally, but too loaded with sugar to be healthy if eaten regularly.

      Anything that comes from a factory is best avoided - except perhaps for cheese and some processed meats. Of course much depends on the factory and how it is run.

      • Yes fruit has sugar, so if you have special dietary needs talk to you doctor. But for the general population fruit, especially whole fruit, is fine to consume regularly as advised by the FDA. https://www.myplate.gov/ [myplate.gov]. A cup of orange juice is not the same as eating the 6 oranges needed to squeeze out that cup of juice.

      • Re:

        If you're fretting over the amount of sugar in fucking fruit you're either not really familiar with eating fruit or there is something much more seriously wrong with your lifestyle that's making you try to min/max your food inputs.
        Like... I don't know... being incapable of unassisted movement.

        Most weight and volume of fruit is just plain water.
        That is why a 100 gram apple will contain only 50-ish calories and 10-ish grams of sugar - while the same amount of sugar will contain 387 calories. And 100 grams of

    • Re:

      British food is mostly terrible. Bland and unappealing, due to the climate hear not being right for growing anything good. So we import a lot of dishes, but not the lifestyle that goes with them. For example we have a lot of Italian stuff, but don't consume it the way Italians traditionally did, so for us it's not very healthy.

        • Re:

          1954 was almost 70 years ago. I doubt ww2 food rationing has any impact on British cuisine today. The native British food I had was mostly inedible. Not fit for human consumption. The foreign food I had there was generally amazing.

      • Re:

        It's not healthy for the Italians either. Centuries ago people were noting that they tended towards corpulence and heart disease in old age. It doesn't matter how scrupulous you are, pasta isn't good for you.

      • Re:

        My understanding of the history is that British cuisine was actually considered very good until a few centuries ago when the religious nuts got their hands on it and decided that enjoyable food was a sin. (Sometimes religious intervention backfires though, like the replacement of Lager with "Bitter" Ale, alas this wasn't the case in this instance) Things accelerated during WW-II where the government actively promoted various foods (for obvious reasons) that, alas, were extremely bland.

        I don't think it ha

      • Re:

        speak for yourself.

        • Re:

          What British food is good?

          • Re:

            Good or good for you? I can name several British meals that I enjoy but off the top of my head I dont think any of them are terribly healthy. Of course context matters too, a full English breakfast is actually a pretty fantastic breakfast if you plan to spend the rest of the day burning off those calories hiking or working outdoors.

  • Holding glucose sources in baby food to the same standards as sucrose/HFCS in adult food would be stupid. Non milk formulas need glucose sources without fructose and I don't know any wholefoods to accomplish that.

  • What exactly are the "First Amendment rights of food companies"?

    The freedom of speech to say whatever they like about what's in the packet?

    • Re:

      Of course.
      As Voltaire once said(*),

      "Sir, I disapprove of you lying about the healthiness of your snacks aimed at children, but I will defend to the death your right to print those lies on the packet in enormous flourescent letters in comic sans font."
    • Re:

      The US allows the awarding of fake degrees from fake universities under the guise of Free Speech. They're too far gone in the Free Speech Extremism already.
      • IMHO as an ignorant foreigner, "free speech" means that individual human beings should be free to say what they think. Other human beings, of course, are free to ignore or argue. Liberty Hall!

        The whole issue of corporations needs to be revisited. They were originally given far too many privileges in the 18th and 19th centuries, and now threaten to control governments everywhere.

          • Re:

            Some dipshit downvoting this apparently likes having an easily abused system that creates shitty laws.
            • Re:

              Or maybe it is because they know your statement was factually wrong? Companies being "people" is a Supreme Court set of decisions in the U.S. not a law. The politicians get a lot of corporate donations and won't fix it. All it leads to is corruption. Personally I think that if you can't vote for a candidate you shouldn't be able to donate to them AND you shouldn't be able to donate to more than one candidate for a position in the same election.

            • Re:

              The whole "corporations are people" has been there from the invention of corporations, not a last minute addition "to some bill or other and had nothing to do with that bill".
              Incorporation brings the legal status of a company having standing in court the same as an individual person, otherwise companies would not be a legal entity, and it would be a mess dealing with the individual stockholders and individual employees in court. It should be nothing more, nothing less than giving corporations that status
          • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

            It's basically a big lie. [wikipedia.org]
            Not a law, not a referendum, not a court decision. Pure bullshit.

            Oh, and BTW, the "court Reporter" in the case, "concerning taxation of railroad properties" - was the former president of Newburgh and New York Railway.
            And don't you think that it was an accident. Railroads were trying to get "personhood" for decades [thomhartmann.com] prior to simply getting one of their own to simply add that line to a SCOTUS decision.

            • Re:

              So basically what you're saying is, if I can get myself into the right position I can add a note to any old thing saying Friday is free ice cream day and it'll stick?

              Back in a bit.
        • Re:

          Free speech between people and corporations are no different. Everything should apply equally. You should be free to say what you think, but not free from the repercussions of your speech.

          You can speak in generalities: "Food these days is unhealthy." - That is free speech.
          You can't be specific: "Kellogg's special K is unhealthy and causes cancer." - Without evidence that is defamation and not protected speech.
          You can't lie about something you sell: "Buy Kellogg's special K, the breakfast cereal known to mak

          • Re:

            One could argue the same applies to murder. Legal regimes and enforcement mechanisms are effectively worthless in terms of preempting murder. They functionally serve as a deterrence and punish crimes only after they are attempted or carried out.

            The whole concept of free speech is that people are able to convey their thoughts and ideas without reprisal.

        • Re:

          Corporations need the right to enter into and enforce contracts. That's how their personhood started. It expanded from there.

          As far as "threaten to control governments everywhere." That has already happened, economically speaking we are all fascists or socialists now. It doesn't really matter, both systems are described by the merger of the State and the corporation.

        • Re:

          The freedom to lie though has always been restricted in various situations. You can't sign a contract and then say "Ha ha, I was lying when I said I'd agree to those terms!" You, obviously, can't lie in court. Advertising? Well, arguably it falls under the first example. Someone is offering you, in exchange for a payment, to provide you with something, and they're claiming it's "99% fat free" and "Good for your heart".

          Which is, I assume, why courts have always sided against lies on packaging and allowed

      • Re:

        Most countries allow that. Fake things from fake entities can be considered a form of satire or completely irrelevant speech. The issue comes when you have fake degrees from real universities at which point you are committing fraud.

        The same applies to speech in general. You can say what you want about nothing, you can say what you want about anything in general, but you can't say what you want about something specific. "People these days are just the worst, nothing but a bunch of sex crazed paedophiles" - o

    • What exactly are the "First Amendment rights of food companies"?

      The freedom of speech to say whatever they like about what's in the packet?

      More like, the freedom of speech to put the cheapest possible product into the food packet and lie through their teeth about how healthy and hygienic it is and lie about the quality of the content. One case in point is the use of ineffective chlorine washing as a substitute for adequate hygiene and suitable conditions for farm animals throughout the production process in order to boost profits. There is no substitute fro proper hygiene in food production and no amount of chlorine washing is going to change that.

    • Re:

      Sure, and then sue them for fraud.

      Notice that many healthy food supplements and e.g. sugar replacements would be just as "healthy" under FDA rules as corn syrup.

      FDA is wrong so often that they should stay out of the opinion business.

      But if they want to join a fraud suit and let a jury decide, then OK, our system allows that.

      No need to go violating their constitutional prohibitions. They should get 30 years minimum per incident if they do that.

    • Re:

      "Corporations are people" - Mitt Romney.
  • I'd say on a general rule that if the food industry is against it, it means that it's good

  • "would automatically disqualify a vast majority of packaged foods"

    Keep talking, we're listening. Can you be more specific? Which packaged foods would automatically disqualify as healthy food, i.e. food?

    • Which packaged foods would automatically disqualify as healthy food, i.e. food?

      Anything that has been heated excessively or for too long, or treated with chemicals to make it last longer. As Adele Davis used to say, white bread lasts for weeks because even microbes and fungi won't eat it.

      Anything that contains industrial oils made from seeds, nuts or vegetables. Personally I would give coconut oil approval, and properly made and stored olive oil. (Technically, olive oil is a fruit juice - it gets worse with age, not better).

      Anything that contains refined grains or sugar.

      That would be a good start.

      • Re:

        Thank god you're not a dietician because your idea of what constitutes "healthy" is just borderline as absurd as "don't eat chemicals". A more nuanced understanding is required, especially when it comes to preservation additives, some of which have been used by humans in the preparation of food since 500BC, and others which are actually already banned in some countries due to poor health outcomes.

      • Re:

        It lasts 2-3 days. Unless you're talking about the stuff they make in the Supermarket Land, but that's neither bread nor foodstuff.

      • Re:

        Anything that contains refined grains or sugar.

        Can we have an exception made for beer please?

  • I think rather than concentrating on what's in the product, they should concentrate on portion sizes and price/portion. Case in point, when I go to Europe, bakeries still make pastries, just like they do over in the U.S., but portions are generally smaller. FDA also needs to somehow gain some control over the marketing folks. Case in point, donuts at my local grocer are 99c each, or $6 per dozen. When I see that, I automatically feel I'm getting ripped off by 50% if I don't buy a dozen donuts, and then I'm stuck eating 9/12 donuts over 3 days and throwing away the last 3. I know. Some of you are saying "why don't you think of your health and just buy the 2 donuts and lose the $1", but companies have very successfully rewired our brains. "You want to upgrade to a jumbo popcorn instead of medium for an additional 50c?" Well DUH! Of course I do, because a jumbo popcorn is 3 times the size of a medium popcorn.
    • Re:

      2 doughnuts costs $1.98, so if you buy that instead of a dozen, you are saving $4.02.
      That is how you need to evaluate it. If they were selling 10 doughnuts for $4.02 and you didn't want to buy doughnuts, would you buy them? Because that is essentially what is happening here.

    • Re:

      I would say, "You really don't want a dozen doughnuts. If you were deciding what you want to buy, before any considerations of price, you would NOT include 'a dozen doughnuts'. So there is no need to think about the price of something you simply don't want".

      Unless of course you know someone else who would be glad of some free doughnuts - maybe even a beggar - in which case, eat the ones you want and give the other person what remains, "compliments of XYZ Store".

    • Re:

      Buy what you need. It's that easy. Spending more money on food you may end up throwing away, is pointless, expensive, and wasteful.

      If you want to fall for the "bulk" trap, then stop playing childish games at your local big box store. Go buy a warehouse and invest in pallets of non-perishables.

      It's not hard to destroy the "bulk deal" argument, but it's certainly easy to fall for it.

    • Re:

      Pastries made in Europe are nothing like pastries made in the U.S. For one if you don't eat the ones in Europe within a day they go off, stale/mouldy. There's far more to healthy food than just portion control and sugar contents and there are incredible differences between what you get at the supermarket vs what you are able to make at home (both in terms of flavour and health).

      To be fair there are plenty of fast chain bakeries in Europe that are producing nothing but shit, but quite often these days when y

  • Nothing a few campaign contributions can’t fix!

    • Re:

      Campaign contributions fix political problems.

      This is a regulatory problem, which is different.

      The fix is regulatory capture [wikipedia.org] via golf vacations and comfortable sinecures for cooperative bureaucrats.

  • by DrXym ( 126579 ) on Monday March 06, 2023 @04:39AM (#63346267)

    What gets me about US food products is the garbage labeling on the back that allows them to pretend food contains multiple "servings". So someone buys a small pack of Cheetos and the back laughably claims it contains 3 servings to make the fat, salt, calorific value seem less.

    Seems to me that food laws for snacks should require each serving be individually packaged if indeed that is a single serving. It might encourage consumers to eat less, or it might motivate manufacturers to stop packaging stuff in such a misleading way.

    • Re:

      The service size is actually mandated by the FDA, that is why a bottle of soda is technically 1.5 servings. Because that is 12 ounces.

      Also, servings are supposed to be more or less spoonfuls. A complete meal should be 6 to 7 servings.

      • Re:

        >The service size is actually mandated by the FDA

        Then the FDA done screwed up - the labeling should make intuitive sense to the consumer, because the labeling should be about guiding that consumer to the best choices.

        A 'serving' should be what an average-height person who regularly engages in moderate exercise and has a healthy body weight would eat in one sitting. A standard soda should be 1 serving, and more than that it should be required to label the bottles not just in ounces or ml, but in serving

    • Maybe your Cheetos are expired and doesn't have the new labeling. My snack size bag lists 1 serving per bag and prominently displays calories per bag on the front. Buy a candy bar and it will show info per bar on the front and per serving on the back.
    • Re:

      Yeah, this is a good point. I love that a "pint" of ice cream (the new American pint, which is 14 ounces, not 16 like the imperial pint) is 3.5 servings.

      Like anyone sits there and eats 4 ounces out of a pint of ice cream and puts the rest away...

      • Re:

        Strictly speaking, the imperial pint is 20 imperial fluid ounces, where each imperial fluid ounce is 28.4131ml. In the US customary system the US fluid ounce is 29.5735ml, while the US food labeling fluid ounce is 30ml. Luckily we have the metric system to compare the US and UK pints, gallons, and fluid ounces with each other.

        Reference: Fluid ounce [wikipedia.org]

    • Re:

      I disagree that the answer is to individually pack servings. That's very wasteful. What should be done is tell the consumer how many calories, etc., are in the entire package. I guarantee you they would hate that just as much.

  • Lying to its people! Healthy is not by popular option, Healthy is not because it has a good profit margin. Healthy is not because you believe it is. Healthy is because it is actually healthy.
  • I'm no expert, but in't the FDA sort of the regulator of the food and drug industry, ie if te industry doesn't like the preponed changes eater 1: suck it up, the regulator is doing it's job 2: suea the FDA for breach of te rules it operates under
    • Re:

      ugh formating bug sorry about that, Dice implement edit button now its 2023 ffs
      • Re:

        They do have a "Continue Editing" button, just not after you accept the preview and click "Submit".
    • Re:

      Just curious...what in the fuck actually makes you assume the FDA is acting in the best interest of the consumer regardless of their declared charter?

      They pretend to regulate corruption. As long as there's still enough money to stuff in pockets.

      You're right. You're no expert on how this actually works.

  • When the government did that with CDs, it ended up actually making albums with the explicit lyrics warnings more desirable. Considering that there's actually a brand of canned water called "Liquid Death" (and presumably people are buying it), I really don't think warning labels will have the effect the FDA is hoping for.

    • Of course it will have the effect that they want. Your error is that you think their purpose is to stop people buying unhealthy food. That is not their purpose. US Citizens are welcome to buy unhealthy food if that's what they want to do. What they are trying to achieve is to stop products being falsely advertised as healthy when they are not. If I want to buy healthy food I would like to be able to believe the label when it tells me it's healthy. Advertise honestly and give the consumer a fair choice. If they still choose to buy unhealthy food that's up to them.
    • Re:

      Depends. Given what is in the product, it would appear the actual goal is to continue to promote harmful addictive foods. Labels would serve as a marketing boost as you've predicted and could be what they ultimately want.

      We're a long fucking way from homemade butter and foods with a handful of natural ingredients, and regulators appear to be working harder to ensure we never go back. As we assume about their intentions of helping consumers via the food supply, take a good hard look at the reality. Shit

    • Re:

      The point of labeling is to inform not make value judgements for individuals. If people want explicit lyrics now it is easier for them to locate content that provides it.

      Liquid death is just a fun marketing gimmick for bottled water, some with light flavoring. There is nothing deadly about it. It's no Jolt Cola which changed its labeling decades ago from boasting about sugar and caffeine to only pushing the caffeine.

    • Re:

      And that's fine. Judging from people's behavior during the Pandemic, there's at least 20-30% of the population who would go "HELL YEAH!" when they see something packaged with a "NOT REMOTELY HEALTHY. This shit will fuck you up!" label.

      But it's also going to mean that people who actually want help picking foods get it. There are people I've explained time and time again that "Low fat" doesn't been "Unfattening" and the fact that food X has 150 calories of mostly fat, and food Y has 150 calories of mostly

  • Alternatively, the food industry could redesign their labels (they do it all the time, so no real hardship that I can see) and use the space gained by removing the word "healthy" to explain exactly how much sugar in total in its various forms the packaging contains. Heck, what happened to the "high energy" labeling that was employed at some time? How about a "serving" of our special High Energy Sports crisps or ketchup?

    I realize I'm a bit sarcastic in the above, but really if anybody needs to eat "healthy"

  • A bad diet is probably the foundation for most self-inflicted health problems. Covid outcomes hit the obese disproportionately.

    All other things being equal, people with a balanced diet are far less likely to need to need drugs to stay healthy.

    Is the maker of Ozempic(weight-loss) lobbying for or against this legislation?

  • 'healthy' is an adjective its an opinion. Further its highly subjective, what is or isn't healthy to eat usually depends on a lot of other factors not the least of which what you are eating it with.

    What we should require is FACTUAL labels about ingredients AND their RELATIVE QUANTITIES. If some company want's tag line their product 'they healthy choice' however unreasonable they should be allowed to do so as long as you can flip the package over and see that it 90% corn syrup a serving 1 oz and it is100 cal

    • > Maybe if our government schools spend more time in health class on dietary requirements at different stages of life and food choices, and less time on nonsense like Tommy maybe Tammie and all the different places he could stick his female penis, we could get a handle on this.

      Yes, I also blame trans people for bad food labeling.

    • Re:

      The meeting for asshole trolls is being held up until you arrive. They don't want to chance having their keynote speaker skip out.

      • Re:

        Hey whatever, the point is simply that the government is using time that should be allocated to ensuring that all citizens have a basic command of essential facts to push weird tribal propaganda.

        Its indefensible and you know that. But hey we can just replace food labeling with a smile or frowny face because Timmy does not need to KNOW anything about biology, metabolism, etc as long we make sure he spout bullshit on command like 'some boys are really girls' like a well trained little puppy.

        By they way I assu

  • Healthy will just be replaced with the next best synonym lawyers think they can get away with.

    This combination of generality and universality have a history of being ignored (e.g. CA's everything causes cancer warnings)

    Better to require labeling to highlight what specifically makes food unhealthy and in what ways.

  • People WANT to be lied to, and they demand it. They want to be told their shitty choices are unimpeachable.
  • They should really look at what Chile, Uruguay, Argentina, Peru, México and others did with their frontal labeling for food items. Healthy is truly a relative term in the context of a diet and lifestyle.

    Frontal labeling of food provides a lot more useful information to the buyer at a glance. The labels look a bit like this [paho.org]. They have a minimum size and need to be on the front of the product.

    The more black labels on the front of a product, the worse is for you if consumed in large quantities.

  • They hijacked the word into useless and now we want it back. Suck it up.

  • FTFA:

    "The FDA estimates that up to just 0.4% of people who try to follow their guidelines would be swayed by the word "healthy...""

    Why bother? It appears virtually no one really cares. 0.4%. We need to redeploy the FDA, and cut staff 50%. Let these enterprising and ambitious overlords find real work to do, please.

  • I followed some of the comments from industry linked to in the article, and found the National Fisheries Institute response.

    https://www.regulations.gov/co... [regulations.gov]

    Apparently as written, Atlantic Salmon and King Salmon fail out the claim of healthy based on the saturated fat limit of 2g per reference amount. And so, they offered a possible list of modifications, one of which is to make the limit 4g for the seafood protein subgroup. That's a reasoned, collaborative response. They took their concern and are trying to preserve the spirit of the plan while tweaking the letter.

  • I definitely support the stricter standards, though I wonder if they're going to have to change again once they figure out a way to define ultra-processed foods [bmj.com].

    Even with artificial sweeteners, the evidence seems to range from "they're bad on their own" to "they're bad anytime". I'd really love to see some more research sort that out.

  • Which requires warnings of products that "contain a chemical known to the State of California to cause cancer" (which includes organic peanut butter, with no preservatives added, because of how poorly worded it is).

    So stores up a Prop 65 warning up at the door to CYA, and everybody completely ignores it.

    This will end up the same way. Instead of "healthy," the marking droids will just use another word, and the consumer won't know - or care - about the difference.


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