For the first time in more than 20 years, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) unveiled a new required nutritional information label for packaged foods.
Experts believe the new label will make it easier for consumers to make informed decisions about their health and the foods they eat.
The updated panel will take effect in two years—and for the first time requires the inclusion of how much sugar has been added during processing or preparation. The label will also suggest a daily value of sugar a person should be eating, similar to what has been included for carbohydrates, fats, and sodium.
New US dietary guidelines suggest limiting consumption of added sugars to less than 10 percent of calories per day. On average, Americans currently receive 13 percent (roughly 270 calories) of their total caloric intake from added sugars—with beverages like soft drinks as the major source.
Some studies report that calorie labelling on fast food hasn't made a difference in calorie consumption, so will this change fare better?
takyon: Evaporated Cane Juice? Puh-leeze. Just Call It Sugar, FDA Says
(Score: 0, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 27 2016, @07:04AM
The recommended 2000 calorie diet is biased toward an average woman. There should be another column on the nutrition facts for men.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 27 2016, @10:35AM
Huh? Maybe it's just me, but 2,000 kcal seems like a lot. I mean, maybe if you're in construction. There is a 2,500 kcal column as well you can use.
I tend to ignore them both. All I need is 1,500–1,800 kcal.
Maybe this explains why so many people are fatasses.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 27 2016, @01:24PM
You sound thin.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 27 2016, @02:22PM
And gay...
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 27 2016, @12:40PM
I thought it was 2000 for men and 1500 for women. Do you have a reference?
(Score: 2) by LoRdTAW on Friday May 27 2016, @02:24PM
My guess is this is an old average where women were not expected to be working and men were doing a lot of physical labor.
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Friday May 27 2016, @05:16PM
Which would suggest that modern men should be consuming even less than that. Probably women too, since most modern employment involves substantially less physical exertion than housekeeping.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 27 2016, @06:06PM
According to my doctors, which are helping me with a weight issue, a human need 10 diet calories per pound at the low exercise level of activity. People who are completely sedentary (e.g. Bedridden) need less and people who are at a an extreme level of activity (cardiovascular athletes during season) need an order of magnitude more. There is a formula they used but I cannot find it offhand.
(Score: 1) by toddestan on Sunday May 29 2016, @05:09PM
I assume that's for a normal weight person? Someone is 300 pounds (and not a bodybuilder or a NFL linebacker) probably shouldn't be consuming 3000 calories if they don't want to get even bigger. And while someone with an extreme level of activity does consume a lot of calories, I don't think they need 100 calories per pound (that's 20,000 calories for a 200 pound man!).
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Friday May 27 2016, @07:11AM
A guideline on how to much added sugar to eat per day? How does the body distinguish between sugars that have already been in the product, and sugars that have been added?
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 27 2016, @07:26AM
Natural sugar was put there by God, it is naturally good, and you do not have to worry about it. Added sugar was added by Satan to tempt you to evil gluttony. So you see the FDA is helpfully helping you to avoid the sinful kind of sugar.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 27 2016, @07:38AM
So you're saying black chocolate is good, but white chocolate is evil. You racist scumbag!
However, you can't be too sure, I'm gonna get some good wholesome black chocolate down me, just in case.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 27 2016, @07:43AM
If you like white on the inside, the coconut is Nature's natural Oreo.
(Score: 2) by fritsd on Friday May 27 2016, @11:09AM
That's why one of the worst insults on the Antilles islands is "you Bounty!"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 27 2016, @08:07AM
added sugars come packaged/clothed with vitamins and minerals, whereas added sugars are naked.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 27 2016, @08:21AM
Lies. Naked Juice contains no added sugar.
(Score: 2) by Bot on Friday May 27 2016, @09:28AM
Lies, added sugar necessarily means subtracted non-sugar, and vitamins are non-sugar.
(Hey, just wanted to write the third illogical post in a row.)
Account abandoned.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 27 2016, @09:28AM
How does the body distinguish between sugars that have already been in the product, and sugars that have been added?
By using the chart on the new label, silly. First you eat the label so your body know what to expect, then you eat the product.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 27 2016, @01:53PM
Strictly speaking, there's no healthy amount of added sugar. The guideline seems reasonable. I wouldn't attempt to avoid all added sugar (already thinking about this weekend and which barbecue sauce I want to use), but the fact is that people in developed countries simply have way too much sugar in their food. It's especially a tragedy when man takes a perfectly good food, removes the fat and salt from it because cargo cult science and Puritan "if it tastes good it can't be healthy" stupidity have convinced him that these are unhealthy, and uses sugar to attempt to recapture the original flavor. Other sugar just has absolutely no reason for being there, such as in soft drinks.
This presentation by Robert H. Lustig [youtube.com] is a bit lengthy but it should answer your question about how the body tells the difference between added sugar and sugar that occurs in fruit for example. Turn the fruit into fruit juice, and suddenly that sugar is just as bad as the sugar in soda pop. It has a lot to do with how the liver processes fructose.
(Score: 2) by driverless on Friday May 27 2016, @02:09PM
Another problem with the labelling is that they're still listing them using the almost entirely useless "serving" size, which is totally meaningless since it's randomly chosen by each vendor. As long as you fiddle the serving size appropriately, you can make anything come under the limit. This is why other countries require reporting in serving sizes (which you ignore) and per 100g (pecks, bushels, pennyweights, cloves, firkins, whatever they're using in the US), which is a standardised unit amount that you can use for reference, as well as making a nice percentage. 45g sugar per 100g means nearly half the amount of however much you're eating is sugar. The FDA's "14% per serving" on the other hand is totally meaningless.
(Score: 2) by legont on Friday May 27 2016, @09:49PM
Food industry adds sugar to make food addictive. Compare coke leaves tea available in certain countries to cocaine added to children’s drink Coca Cola.
Very few naturally available foods are addictive. They have to be processed to make them so. This rule makes one of a sneaky ways to hook people less sneaky.
"Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 27 2016, @07:17AM
How come everyone becomes an expert when it comes to diet?
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 27 2016, @07:33AM
They are diet experts because they eat so much food :^)
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 27 2016, @07:34AM
All of them. Subcutaneous fat is a necessary feature of the anatomy of the buttocks.
(Score: 2) by MostCynical on Friday May 27 2016, @07:49AM
about 38% of them, apparently.. http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/obesity-overweight.htm [cdc.gov]
"expert" in the case really means "has an opinion"
Most people who eat too much (which is most overweight people) have lots of excuses.
They know ALL ABOUT the food. they count calories. They know how much of everything bad is in every slice.. so they can justify 'just one slice'.
10,000 hours practice eating?!
"I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
(Score: 2) by snufu on Saturday May 28 2016, @05:52AM
The 38% you mention are in the "Sir, you are going to have to purchase two tickets for this flight" category.
"Percent of adults age 20 years and over with overweight, including obesity: 70.7% (2013-2014)"
(Score: 2) by MostCynical on Saturday May 28 2016, @06:57AM
So all those skinny cheerleaders are destined to get suffocated by their husbands ..
"I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
(Score: 4, Insightful) by SunTzuWarmaster on Friday May 27 2016, @12:13PM
5'9", ~170, ~20-21% BF, age 30, bench:1.25xBW, squat:2.5xBW, pull:1.5xBW, mile:9min, hike:20+mi
As an amateur gymnast, I can do a muscle up, L-sit (60+seconds), back lever (30 seconds), and front level (5 seconds, lol) on rings. As an amateur yoga person, I can put my wrists to the floor. As an amateur hiker, I hiked Half Dome in Yosemite (22 miles, 5000+ feet elevation gain).
When on travel with new people, I regularly get comments from people who are weaker, have less endurance, cannot touch their toes, and have higher body fat percentage that "fasting is bad for your metabolism", "carbs are exercise fuel" or other crap. I don't critique your diet, so just leave me the fuck alone. /rant
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 27 2016, @01:00PM
When on travel with new people, I regularly get comments from people who are weaker, have less endurance, cannot touch their toes, and have higher body fat percentage that "fasting is bad for your metabolism", "carbs are exercise fuel" or other crap. I don't critique your diet, so just leave me the fuck alone. /rant
OMG, that triggers me so hard :(
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 27 2016, @01:37PM
Heh. GP's observation shows hints of why nobody can lose any weight and why everybody is constantly "dieting" and rebounding.
Everything we do today is artificial. We have the cult of the diet. "Carbs are exercise fuel!" No, carbs are the reason why you don't lose any weight after running for two hours at the gym. "Fasting is bad for your metabolism!" Well, yes, fasting for say, a week or two is bad for your metabolism. On the other hand, I really doubt that fasting once per week as recommended by yoga has that much impact at all. More advice from the cult of the diet: "Don't eat fat!" Wrong again. Low fat and fat-free foods would taste like cardboard without the extra sugar they add in. "Salt is bad for you!" Wrong, wrong, wrong. See again flavor. A healthy person's body is more than capable of naturally regulating blood sodium.
Take a good look at people who worship the cult of the diet. They claim an encyclopedic knowledge of the latest food research. They meticulously count their calories. Their meals are carefully balanced according to some magic ratio of carbs, fats, and proteins. They religiously attend their house of worship, gym. They're still fat. Obviously what they're doing doesn't work. Look to them for what not to do.
The only way to obtain and effortlessly keep a healthy body weight is to keep active on a daily basis and to start from raw ingredients as much as possible. I believe that the mind also plays an important role in keeping a healthy body weight. A mind that is constantly stressed out and dissatisfied is the mind of a person who is scrambling to obtain whatever food he can as far as the body is concerned.
(Score: 2) by legont on Friday May 27 2016, @09:59PM
Exactly. Any processed food is bad. Anything made by a food corporation is bad. There is no exception.
The only way is to start as close to the nature as possible - preferably grow your own without any fertilizers.
Can't do it? Buy raw food from farmers and cook. Still can't? Buy raw from supermarkets then cook. Can't cook? Learn to exist with diabetes, fat and depression.
"Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 27 2016, @05:17PM
Everyone spends over the average 10,000 hours dealing with food during their life. 10,000 is the estimated amount of time it takes to become an expert at something.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 27 2016, @05:31PM
That "10k hours" is bullshit, too - bullshit standing on the shoulders of other bullshit.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 27 2016, @07:43AM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MepXBJjsNxs [youtube.com]
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Absolutely.Geek on Friday May 27 2016, @08:19AM
Wow....here I was thinking that the US was more advanced. Currently in NZ we are debating adding the sugar info to the front of the pack in a handy "teaspoons of sugar" metric to go along with the gram's that have been on the back for 20+ years.
So in NZ in the near future (if the legislation goes ahead) that can of coke will have a teaspoon logo on the front with a 13 in the middle; indicating equivalent of 13 teaspoons of sugar in this product.
Don't trust the police or the government - Shihad: My mind's sedate.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 27 2016, @09:28AM
The sugar industry in US is very powerful. It's a billion dollar business. That's why it isn't more regulated and why we see red herrings like "added sugar". (as if the origin made a difference. Also, it's common to break down more complex carbohydrates in the products to simple sugars but that doesn't go into the deceptive "added sugars" figure...)
(Score: 2) by gidds on Friday May 27 2016, @01:48PM
A teaspoon is Imperial, not metric...
(Sorry!)
[sig redacted]
(Score: 3, Informative) by Aiwendil on Friday May 27 2016, @02:24PM
A metric teaspoon (yes, it exists - commonly used in metric countries) is 5ml.. imperial and US teaspoons are on either side.
(Score: 1) by toddestan on Sunday May 29 2016, @05:19PM
I've never heard of a metric tablespoon. But in the US a tablespoon is about 14.8 ml, and a teaspoon is a 1/3 of a tablespoon, so a US teaspoon is going to slightly smaller than 5 ml. So for all practical purposes, a "metric tablespoon" is the same thing as a US tablespoon. I always find it amusing when metric countries still use English units (outside of when they have to deal with the US).
(Score: 2) by Aiwendil on Sunday May 29 2016, @07:45PM
Err, my bad, often mix up teaspoon and tablespoon in english (in swedish it is tesked and matsked (lit. food-spoon), so I tend to read all on "t" as teaspoon).
Well, why do you find it amusing? Teaspoon, tablespoon, and cup are old units used in most of the western world pre-metric (in swe/nor that happened in 1889), heck some of my grandma's recipies use "teacup" (half a cup)
Just for fun - a "svensk mil" (swedish mile, still in active use) is 10km.. if you really want to see legacy units in action... :)
Also, mectication happen quite recently in some countries (1970-1988 in australia for instance) - so it makes sense the units linger around.
Oh, and you should really read a swedish recipie sometimes, we use pinches, teaspoons, tablespoons, decilitre, kilogrammes and plain grammes - often in the same recipie
(Score: 1) by toddestan on Sunday May 29 2016, @11:44PM
I find it amusing because I always hear people from Europe crow about how much better the metric system is over the English/Imperial system (not saying you're one of those people). Then I find out they have have things like "metric teaspoons". Or they measure their weight in stones, and so forth. I really don't care, just use the units and measurements that make the most sense.
You do bring up another difference I've noticed between the US and Europe when it comes to cooking. In the US, it seems that recipes tend specify quantities in terms of volumes. Two cups of this, a teaspoon of that, etc. In Europe, recipes tend to specify quantities in terms of mass, usually grams. So in that sense, I guess it doesn't surprise me if recipes would use both teaspoons, tablespoons, and grams.
(Score: 2) by Aiwendil on Monday May 30 2016, @06:24AM
I am one of those that thinks metric makes more sense.. I just enjoy cooking enough to have to deal with the old measurements (and I find 250cl to be a lot more handy than having to figure out if an author that was born in britain, living in usa and writing about an australian recipie is using an imperial cup, a us cup, or a metric cup - useful for deyermining cooking times)..
But I agree with using the system that makes most sense, and at small amounts of food I agree that the old units are more suitable.
For liquids we use the fluid units (litre, teaspoon, tablespoon), for dry bulk [flour and such] we use either, and for non-dry bulk [butter, yeast] and meat we use grammes.. However whenever we start to hit big units (more than about a litre) we also tend to almost exclusivly use grammes again for dry bulk (it makes more sense to whip out the kitchen scale if you need 2pounds/1kg of flour than risking to lose count of number of measures used).
Also, our unit-system is pretty linear, if you remember that 1g of water is 1ml (and 10g=1cl, 100g=10cl=1dl (deci-), and 1kg=100cl=1l) conversion is quite easy, and on the packaging of most of our dry bulk the weight per litre (or dl in sweden) is specified. (For instance flour is 80g per dl).
So yeah, if a recipie says "use 1kg of flour" you know it is slightly more than 1.2l of flour.
Mostly water liquids (water, milk) can be specified as either since it is 1:~1 (but outside of industrial it is rare to see those as weight)
Oh, another common everyday oddball is the hg[hecto-] or dKg[deci-kilo-] (depending on what country you're in) to indicate 100g (which - for water - is 1dl) - which actually is what is used as our equivalent to [quarter-, half-, ,]pound in terms of roughly specifying amounts (up to the kilo)
(Score: 2) by driverless on Friday May 27 2016, @02:13PM
See my other comment on this. A more accurate headline would be "New Labels Hide from Americans How Much Sugar is Added to Food". The FDA has been totally subverted by the sugar-industry lobby. I was kinda disturbed when I went into a US supermarket a few weeks ago and had no idea, from the labelling of the products I looked at, how much of various unhealthy components were actually present. The labels are there, but they don't tell you anything useful.
(Score: 2) by snufu on Saturday May 28 2016, @06:04AM
Please convert to equivalent Niagaras of Congress so we can get an idea of how much sugar we are talking about.
(Score: 2) by Aiwendil on Friday May 27 2016, @10:08AM
Ok, that phrasing makes me a bit curious.. How would a product that is centered around sugar and then have flavouring added be labelled? For instance:
* Sugar cubes - nothing added, just sugar
* Toffe - equal parts sugar and fat with added flavouring
* Cola - sugar with added flavouring
* Cola pop/soda - basically cola diluted with water.
I mean, all of those are sugar primarily..
And for that matter.. if you decide to make instant chocolate with extra dried milk/milk powder? (milk is a sweeter in itself and you can push the level of milk to insane levels before it stops getting tastier - I occasionally add a dash of dried milk to my morning [whole fat] cup of hot chocolate [all the taste of added cream sans the horrid fat-taste])
(Score: 5, Insightful) by CoolHand on Friday May 27 2016, @11:08AM
Anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job-Douglas Adams
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 27 2016, @11:52AM
The sugar companies are still threatening to sue. They'll probably lose though.
As for label accuracy, there seem to be a couple of smartphone spectrographs about to hit the market which will let people check food makeup for themselves.
http://spectrum.ieee.org/tech-talk/consumer-electronics/gadgets/handheld-spectroscopy-tool-lets-you-examine-the-molecular-composition-of-your-food [ieee.org]
(Score: 2) by RamiK on Friday May 27 2016, @12:27PM
Why would they even try? They'll just use other sweeteners. Stuff like corn syrup probably won't even count. So, they'll use beet & and cane molasses, dried milk, Japanese Mirin... Basically, they could just skip a refining process or two.
The only problem would be added costs. When you look at how brown sugar is made from white sugar and added resin and water, it's clear shipping costs of anything less pure then white are quite prohibitive. However, maybe that's the whole point. Maybe they're trying to block the international sugar market from the US so they're making up "health" codes that force using local sugar sources. Big corporations will just move plants around to where the beets grow and add them in directly. So in-effect, this law will hurt small corporations and international players while strengthening the local big guys.
And if all else fails, they can even start growing stevia rebaudiana instead of sugar beets and canes. Maybe even use artificial sweeteners...
compiling...
(Score: 2) by butthurt on Saturday May 28 2016, @07:11AM
I see what you did there.
(Score: 2) by RamiK on Saturday May 28 2016, @09:04AM
I... I did? I was just being factual about the process... People think the resin is only used for ion exchange softening of white beet and cane sugar. While cation exchange resin is also initially used in the (re)browning similarly to how it used with juices' product quality.
Regardless, it's only an example of just how expensive it is to ship anything but white sugar. It's factually cheaper to multi-stage boil and chemically treat the white then to ship the real thing. So when it comes to these health regulations, it's possible the real purpose is to stop white sugar imports by targeting it exclusively while allowing other sweeteners.
compiling...
(Score: 2) by butthurt on Saturday May 28 2016, @04:53PM
Oh, I thought you were using a funny word for treacle (molasses). I thought brown sugar was often made by mixing that with white sugar.
Honey and maple syrup will be deemed "added sugar":
/comments.pl?sid=13674&cid=349098#commentwrap [soylentnews.org]
Imports are effectively kept out with a tariff, last I heard.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 27 2016, @04:24PM
They have been quite successful. Their other success is in preventing halal certification symbols from being added to labels.
(Score: 2) by Anne Nonymous on Friday May 27 2016, @01:30PM
But how about going straight to the bottom line and adding glycemic load? Too hard to measure? Too easy to cheat on measurements?
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Friday May 27 2016, @05:21PM
Most people can't even spell "glycemic load" let alone know what it means, that's why. Also, different people will react slightly differently to the same composition and amount of sugars.
What this boils down to is deception by processed food companies and laziness and ignorance on the part of customers. Only one, at most two, of those can be fixed.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Friday May 27 2016, @05:37PM
"Glycemic load? Sure, I loved their last album, but he's a dork and she's too slutty."
(Score: 2) by snufu on Saturday May 28 2016, @06:48AM
If you liked Glycemic Load, be sure to listen to some tracks from his previous group, Lysergic Casserole. But don't bother with the later albums, they get a bit incoherent.
(Score: 2) by butthurt on Saturday May 28 2016, @03:32AM
This story ran last week-end [soylentnews.org].