New Food Labels Have Been Spotted!

New food labels are coming!

I spy new food labels!

Take a look – does it look different to you? Do you see the changes?

Well, the first thing I notice is the calories are listed in a larger font and are bolded to boot. There’s no missing that right? The second thing I notice is the serving size is also now bolded. There’s some other changes too – take a look at the nutrient information at the bottom. Gone are the daily value percentages for vitamin A and vitamin C – they’ve been replaced with vitamin  D and potassium.

But the biggest change on the new food labels that stands out is the breakdown of the total sugars. Take a look –  do you notice it? The amount of added sugars is listed under total sugars. So now you will now how much sugar is added to a food versus how much is naturally occurring. This keeps it in line with the 2015-2020 Dietary Guidelines for Americans that recommends to limit added sugars to no more than 10% of your daily calories. What does that mean? So say you eat 2,000 calories a day – limit added sugars to 200 calories or 12 teaspoons per day.

Okay, so wait a minute. I just told you to limit your added sugar intake to 12 teaspoons per day but the label doesn’t provide that information. I know – I wish sugar was listed as teaspoons. And while I’m at it, I wish protein was listed as ounces and daily values would just disappear.  Why? By listing as teaspoons and ounces, I think makes it easier to understand just how much you are eating.  So the new label still requires some translation. But in the meantime, this is improvement. Oh and by the way four grams of sugar is equal to one teaspoon.

So it’s not mandatory yet for manufacturers to change their label. Hopefully within the next couple years we’ll be looking at this new label instead of the dated label we’re used to seeing (you are reading food labels now aren’t you?!).

Have you spotted a new food label?