Will New Food Labels Make Americans Thinner?
By Alex Jung, AlterNet. Posted October 3, 2007.
The line between health education and marketing just got blurrier.
2005 was the year of the whole grain. While nutritionists and dietitians had long touted the benefits of whole grains, it was food behemoths like General Mills and Kraft that had the financial capabilities of generating national buzz by transforming their classic products into more nutritional edibles. Nutritional fads are nothing new and neither are the reformulations processed foods undergo to cater to them. For example, Trix, that rainbow-hued confection with a sugar-induced white rabbit for a mascot, could now boast wholesome graininess on the side of its box. And while the cereal technically reduced its sugar content, it maintained the same number of calories (as well as a disturbing 13 grams of sugar per 30-gram portion). It was a superficial makeover designed to ease the consciences (but not the waistlines) of consumers.
What we choose to eat is often determined less by a food's nutritional value than by the way that nutritional information is packaged. The consumer watchdog group Center for Science in the Public Interest submitted a petition last November to the Food and Drug Administration advocating a national system of symbols to adorn packaged foods. The idea is to create an easy cheat sheet for consumers so they don't have to read through the fine print while grocery shopping.
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