The Food and Drug Administration revealed a new nutritional label Friday for packaged foods sold in the United States. The goal of the redesigned label is to help people make informed decisions about their food.
"I am thrilled that the FDA has finalized a new and improved nutrition facts label that will be on food products nationwide," said first lady Michelle Obama. "This is going to make a real difference in providing families across the country the information they need to
make healthy choices."
Highlighted below are nine updates of the new label.
1. The resigned label emphasizes calories and servings — two important elements in making informed food choices.
2. Per the Nutrition Labeling and Education Act, serving size requirement have been updated to more closely reflect how much food people actually consume.
3. Labels will include grams and a percent daily value for "added sugars."
4. Calorie and nutrition information for certain multi-serving food products will be presented in two columns — "per serving" and "per package."
5. Packages that contain between one and two servings, such as a 20 ounce soda, need to be labeled as one serving because people typically consume it in one sitting.
6. Daily values should be updated for sodium, dietary fiber and vitamin D, to reflect the Institute of Medicine's recommendations and the 2015-2020 Dietary Guidelines for Americans.
7. Packages will have to include actual gram amounts and the percent daily value for vitamin D and potassium.
8. "Calories from Fat" will no longer appear on packages because studies show the type of fat is more important than the amount.
9. A new explanation will be given to describe percent daily value in an abbreviated footnote.
The American Medical Association praised the FDA for its new label.
AMA President Steven J. Stack, MD, released a statement saying, "We commend the FDA for modernizing the label, particularly the inclusion of added sugars, which we believe will be extremely helpful in preventing the debilitating chronic medical conditions, including type 2 diabetes and heart disease, currently affecting millions of Americans."
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