One Bowl = 2 Servings. F.D.A. May Fix That.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/06/business/06portion.html

by mikek • 16 years ago

24 22 16 years ago

Any one who has actually read a food label will realize that serving size != package size and for things like cereal my bowl != serving size.

It's hard to believe how touchy people are. Will people really take increased serving sizes as a signal to eat more? Probably not. It won't change anything for those who don't pay attention to calories/serving sizes nutrition. People who count calories will shit a brick and hopefully start eating less processed foods.

This is all really pointless anyways. If the FDA really wanted to address obesity they need to take a hard stance against processed foods and high fructose corn syrup. That will never happen because food companies will lobby to protect their empires and a large portion of Americans can't afford to eat real food.

yummyfajitas• 16 years ago

People who count calories have the ability to figure out that 18 chips @ 150 calories/6 chips implies "OMFG, I just ate 450 calories! I'm going be fat and you are going to leave me! This is all your fault for buying chips!"

BearOfNH• 16 years ago

It would be nice if there were a nutrition label for the entire package. Until then I can use Wolfram Alpha, which has quite a good database.

And I agree with you on the fructose. It is bad stuff, at least in the concentrations found in processed food.

It is a bit comical that the EPA is raising holy hell over carbon dioxide while the FDA turns a blind eye to HFCS.

likpok• 16 years ago

Citation? I've heard lots of people talk of the dangers of HFCS, but I've never even heard of a scientific explanation, let alone seen a study.

luminarious• 16 years ago

What's with the confusing system? Maybe it's from growing up with it, but here in Europe the system makes a lot more sense: all foods specify the calories/ other food info per 100 grams. This makes it easy to compare different foods. Since the weight of the pack is also given in grams, it's really basic level math to figure out how many calories eating half a pack of something gives.

ComputerGuru• 16 years ago

I disagree. How many grams of Cereal did you just pour into that bowl? How many Chex Mix grams did you just chomp down? How many grams of Tang did you mix in with that water?

Sure, using grams is great for comparison... But getting the average person to find out how many grams of xxx they just consumed, unless it is easily quantifiable as "all/half/quarter of the total amount" is pretty hard.

niallsmart• 16 years ago

I've lived in both US/Europe and believe the kcal/100g is an important part of the nutrition label for two reasons:

1) Calorific density is much more important then calories per portion. If the majority of your food intake is in the 300-500kcal/100g range then you are going to feel hungry more often, over consume and gain weight - the body's satiation feedback loop is calibrated for fresh, natural food (50-200kcal/100g) not doritos (500kcal+). Interestingly, natural foods outside the typical range are difficult to consume in large quantities (try eating 2000kcal of avocados or honey in one sitting). There's a good discussion of these issues in the Volumetrics book.

2) US "serving sizes" are completely artificial, to the point of being downright misleading. The food industry is essentially lying to consumers. Calorie density can't be spun.

m_eiman• 16 years ago

The best use of the "per 100g" version is that you can compare different brands of the same kind of food. If you're buying breakfast cereal the interesting question is which cereal suits you best, not if it contains more energy per 100g than butter (if it does, it's unlikely to be healthy).

rarrrrrr• 16 years ago

The truly deceitful food industry trick here isn't with calories but trans fats.

The FDA allows food companies to round down and say "0 grams of trans fat" on the label if the product contains less than 0.5 grams _per serving_.

So food companies proudly say "0g trams fat" on the front of a package, even though it might be loaded with heart poisoning hydrogenated oils.

Unsurprisingly, FDA requirements are fairly relaxed in this area compared to Canada and the EU.

bshep• 16 years ago

I have a PAM non-stick cooking spray that says '0g of fat' and has something like 430 servings, a serving is a 1/3second spray, something tells me that 1/3 second spray is what has less than 0.5g of fat and hence why they used that number.

EDIT: As someone mentioned below, wolfram alpha has a good database. According to that the can (5oz) has 112g of fat. By my math 112g/430servings = 0.26g/serving =/= 0g/serv

http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=pam+cooking+spray+5oz

dwwoelfel2• 16 years ago

Who are these people that can't do the simple math required to convert from serving size to the amount they consume? If they are too stupid to know that (3 servings per can) X (130 calories per serving) = 390 calories per can, then they are too stupid to count calories. Of course, counting calories isn't that smart to begin with. It's quality, not quantity, that matters.

DTrejo• 16 years ago

Lazy ≠ stupid.

dwwoelfel2• 16 years ago

The people this new regulation seeks to help are the ones that count calories, but can't multiply serving size by calories per serving. People that count calories aren't lazy in this context, so we're left with the subset of people who are too stupid to multiply. My comment demonstrated that this subset is the empty set.

solutionyogi• 16 years ago

I don't understand the obsession with the nutrition labels. And if you really think that nutrition labels can help fight obesity in any way, you are dreaming. FDA thinks that people are stupid and need to tell us what we should eat. Show me one man/woman whom, while munching away on big bag of chips OR pint of ice cream, doesn't know that chips/ice cream is not going to help his/her waistline. I don't know of any. I think everyone knows that vegetables/fruits are vastly superior to processed food. But we still eat the crap which tastes good and no regulations FDA can think of, will change that.

Here's a riddle. The nutrition labeling became law in 1990 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nutrition_Labeling_and_Educatio...). Do you think obesity has increased OR decreased after 1990?

On a side note, I am from India and we don't have this nutrition label requirement and India doesn't have obesity problems. It's about what and how much people eat, nutrition label ain't gonna change it.

jrockway• 16 years ago

Here's a riddle. The nutrition labeling became law in 1990

Correlation does not imply causation. The cause of the "obesity epidemic" is overeating of nutrient-poor processed foods. These foods exist because the food industry needs to show its shareholders that 12%-per-year growth, but the population is not growing that quickly, and it's hard to get people to eat 12% more carrots per year. The solution is to sell less nutrients for the same amount of money, the side effect is that people eat more calories than they should, and balloon into the current problem. Food labeling is completely irrelevant, because the people that become obese eat what tastes good, not what a label tells them is healthy.

I find food labels to be very useful. Sometimes things have surprisingly high fat content, and the label points this out to people who care. (Ever cook your shrimp in coconut milk and notice how delicious it is? It's because the coconut milk has 20 grams of fat in 2 tablespoons. Bet you wouldn't have realized that without the label.)

You're right that it's obvious that a pint of ice cream or a bag of chips is unhealthy. The labels are for the cases when it's not as clear. There is a lot of junk-ish food that is actually pretty healthy, and there is a lot of healthy-seeming food that is actually very unhealthy. The labeling allows you to identify these special cases.

I think this is because a large majority of India's population can't afford to overeat processed food. Give everyone more money, and you'll see the same problems as in the US.

jseifer• 16 years ago

"Officials say such labeling will be voluntary, but the agency may set rules to prevent companies from highlighting the good things about their products, like a lack of trans fats, while ignoring the bad, like a surfeit of unhealthy saturated fats."

That one is pretty bad because saturated fats are actually healthy.

One Bowl = 2 Servings. F.D.A. May Fix That.

Related Stories