Perspective: What is the Likely Impact of the Proposed Food and Drug Administration Front-of-Package Criteria on the Labeling of Foods?

TL;DR

This paper examines how a proposed FDA food labeling rule would classify foods based on nutrients to limit, and suggests including nutrients to encourage for a more balanced health assessment.

Contribution

The study applies FDA's proposed front-of-package labeling criteria to real food data and evaluates its potential impact on food classification.

Findings

The proposed FDA criteria classify foods based on added sugars, sodium, and saturated fat per serving.

The analysis reveals how food categories would be distributed under the low, medium, and high nutrient criteria.

The authors suggest a balanced labeling approach that includes nutrients to encourage for a more comprehensive health assessment.

Abstract

The United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recently proposed a new rule on front-of-package (FOP) labeling. Focusing on added sugars, sodium, and saturated fat, the proposed FOP label would identify foods with low [<5% daily value (DV)], medium (6‒19% DV), and high (20% DV) concentrations of each nutrient, calculated per serving size. This study applied the proposed FDA criteria to food categories and subgroups as defined in the USDA Food and Nutrient Database for Dietary Studies (2017‒2018). Nutrient composition data were joined with the FDA Reference Amounts Customarily Consumed. Analyses show the distribution of foods into FDA low, medium, and high criteria for each nutrient. Further analyses addressed food categories that were good (10%‒19% DV) or high/excellent (20% DV) sources of calcium, protein, and dietary fiber. This proposed labeling approach focuses only on nutrients to limit, similar to “warning label” FOP approaches seen in other countries. A balanced labeling approach that also includes nutrients to encourage (e.g., protein, dietary fiber, vitamins, and minerals) may be the preferred option to establish the relative healthfulness of foods.

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