Why The FDA Just Proposed A Major Change To Our Food Packages

The Food and Drug Administration has just pitched a potential change in the way packaged foods are labeled in America, which might make healthy shopping at-a-glance a little faster. NBC reports that in this proposal, food manufacturers would be required to display three key bits of information on the front of the packaging, which would be the amounts of saturated fat, added sugar, and sodium in the product. The nutrition labels on the back of food packaging would still remain.

The hope is to cut through advertising angles on the packaging that might distract as to what's truly in the food. For example, some drinks tout high amounts of vitamins or minerals in them, yet can still be packed with additional sugar, which provides its own set of dietary considerations. Or a product can be marketed as low-fat, yet be packed with hidden amounts of sodium. The current FDA proposition suggests that the amount of saturated fat, added sugar, or sodium also be marked as "low," "medium," or "high," which would ideally give people some contextual understanding of what to take into consideration when buying food. This design was created using research, focus groups, and an agency-led study of almost 10,000 participants that documented people's responses to other designs.

The earliest any of these changes would be implemented is 2028, so we're still some years out on any movement around this. But having additional nutritional information displayed on the front of food packaging is already the norm in other countries, like Mexico, where certain items display warnings such as "exceso azúcares," (excessive sugars) or "exceso sodio" (excessive sodium), should they pass certain designated thresholds. Chile and Brazil also have mandatory front of packaging labels as well. Diets high in sodium, sugar, and saturated fat are linked to chronic health conditions down the road, such as heart disease and diabetes.

Research has found that this information on packaging has had an affect on the way people shop for their groceries in other countries. But since cultures vary so widely, it's not easy to predict if displaying the additional information will do what the FDA hopes to do here: namely, discourage unhealthy eating habits. Then there's the matter of industry trade groups, who have already voiced their concerns with certain types of changes. So we'll have to see how this all pans out in the next few years, as these processes tend to take a long time.