FDA Considering New Food Labels

Thanks to John Donohue, whose blog is Stay At Stove Dad, I've learned that the Center for Science in the Public Interest is urging the Food & Drug Administration to re-do food labels.

Donohue thinks it's ridiculous to let the food companies express the amount of calories and other nutrients in terms of portion sizes that are not realistic. Like a 20-ounce Coke: who stops after drinking the so-called "usual" portion of 8 ounces? So, lots of folks may think they're drinking less than half the sugar than they actually are.

As I pointed out in an earlier blog, there's also a basic problem with the disclosure of the sugar content in the first place. Real people don't measure sugar in grams, but that's the standard of measure used on the labels. It's time to get real and start showing it in teaspoons. Tell me that there are 67 grams of sugar in a 20-ounce Coke, and I have no idea if that's a lot. Tell me it's 16 teaspoons, and the thought of all that sugar makes me gag!

So, let's all make our feelings known to the FDA and hope that under the Obama Administration someone in Washington might actually listen.