Whether you buy your food from a traditional grocery store, big box store, general store, or gas station, you have to face the reality that most of your options are junk food – highly processed foods full of sugar, salt, and chemical additives.
We also have to contend with aggressive marketing jargon like “low-fat,” “gluten-free,” “paleo,” “ketogenic,” and “high-fiber” that doesn't answer the fundamental question: Is this food good for me? Oranges are an easy choice, but what about frozen foods? For those without the time, patience, or skill to dissect nutritional labels on food packages, there's little reliable guidance.
What might help is a system that gives consumers key nutritional information at a glance on the front of the package, such as warning signs that sugary sodas or breakfast cereals are unhealthy choices. A bold move here would steer people away from unhealthy foods.
Of course, these kinds of labels are not something most big food manufacturers want to put on their products, but several countries, mainly in Latin America, have started to require or encourage such labeling, and there is early evidence that it is already having a positive impact on people's diets.
With roughly 60 percent of the American diet made up of processed foods, and processed foods being linked to increased risks of diabetes, heart disease and some cancers in the U.S., it's time for the government to also require warnings on labels.
Until recently, the United States was the world leader in food nutrition labeling. In the 1960s, Congress passed a law requiring food companies to list ingredients on all products distributed in interstate commerce. About seven years later, nutrition labels on some foods were expanded to include calorie counts and amounts of protein, carbohydrates, fat, and certain micronutrients. In 1990, in response to an increase in confusing nutritional claims on packaging, the Nutrition Labeling and Education Act was enacted, requiring food companies to be consistent and to require products to have a standardized Nutrition Facts panel.
But in a concession to industry, Congress allowed food manufacturers, with Food and Drug Administration approval, to print disease-risk reduction claims on certain food labels. For example, oats can claim to “reduce cholesterol,” and foods can be labeled as “good for the heart” or contain antioxidants that “help the immune system,” but these claims are far too simplistic.
Chile, Mexico, Brazil, and dozens of other countries have undertaken food labeling changes. Research suggests that such labels help people understand nutritional value and change their purchasing habits. Ultimately, the goal of labels is to improve nutrition and reduce consumption of ultra-processed foods.
After Chile introduced several regulations in 2016, including restrictions on advertising of unhealthy foods, bans on junk food and drinks in schools, and warning labels, researchers found that consumption of beverages high in sugar and sodium fell by about 25%. Researchers also observed that warning labels led to a reduction in sugar, sodium, and saturated fat in the food supply. In Uruguay, a study published in 2020 evaluating the early impact of nutrition warnings found that 58% of participants who noticed the warnings changed their product purchase decision. Of those who changed their decision, 17% chose a similar product with fewer warnings, and 18% decided not to buy the similar product at all.
Chile, and many other countries that use front-of-pack labeling, have a constitutional right to health, which gives authorities the power not only to impose warning labels but also to ban certain health claims and codify advertising restrictions. (Mexican Supreme Court recently upheld front-of-pack labeling restrictions on health grounds.)
In the United States, enacting new labeling laws will be much harder. But there are reasons to think we are ready for change. In 2022, the White House announced that the FDA will conduct a study and propose a standardized system for displaying nutritional information to complement the Nutrition Facts label on food packages. The FDA will host public meetings and focus groups soon thereafter, and its proposals are expected to be released shortly. And last December, Rep. Jan Schakowsky of Illinois and Sen. Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut introduced a bill that would direct the FDA to create warning labels for unhealthy foods and beverages.
As expected, food manufacturers will do everything in their power to block the implementation of warning labels; they have already argued that such a plan would be costly, costs that would be passed on to consumers. However, a study conducted shortly after Chile's food labeling and advertising law was passed found that despite a reduction in consumer consumption of unhealthy foods, there was no impact on total employment and only a negligible effect on wages and profit margins in the food and beverage sector.
Of course, these companies may choose to fight the new food labels in court. In many ways, corporations are considered people under U.S. law and their free speech rights are protected, but there are ways around it. If the FDA proposed labels that relied on shapes and color designs to indicate that a product was too high in calories or unhealthy, a court would likely rule that it did not violate free speech.
And as Americans become more comfortable with the idea of ​​more aggressive labeling, the FDA may be able to get more creative and put warning labels on all highly processed foods highlighting added sugars, sodium and fat.
A 2019 study estimated that simply putting warning labels on sugary drinks could reduce obesity rates among U.S. adults by 3.1 percentage points over a five-year period. While this number may seem insignificant, the study found that it amounts to more than 5 million fewer obese adults.
And in the long term, the food industry may choose, without being forced to, to change food formulations to make them less harmful, in order to maintain their profit margins. Processing is not inherently bad. Take peanut butter, for example: a product that contains only peanuts and salt is “processed.” (When companies add ingredients like high fructose corn syrup or emulsifiers, it becomes ultra-processed.) In Chile and other countries, warning label policies already encourage manufacturers to change products to avoid warning statements.
To be clear, this is just one step of many to get all Americans eating healthier, but intuitive front-of-pack labeling is one of the best tools available to policymakers, and it's already worked well elsewhere. It could work here, too.
Kat Morgan is a food systems consultant. Mark Bittman is a former opinion columnist and the author of 30 books, including How to Cook Everything and Animal Vegetable Junk: A History of Food, From Sustainable to Suicidal.
Graphics by Taylor Maggiacomo. Product photos by Santa Isabel, Farmacias Medicity, and Try the World.
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