FOP Introduction

Review the pictures below.  They are of products that I have recently purchased and as you can see, the manufacturers of these products have chosen to put some information from the Nutrition Facts panel (NFP) or from the ingredient list on the front of the pack - to bring them to your attention.  They also point out things that they think will get your dollar - like No Trans Fats!

You will also notice, that they are not the same.  The styles and the information are independently chosen by the company and sometimes the store, if it is a shelf tag (guiding stars).  Even the two ice creams from the same company (did Nestle buy Skinny Cow?) have two different sign posts.  The Kashi cereal and the ice cream are using the nutrient specific systems and the All Bran cereal includes percent of daily value . It include the sugar grams also and this is great in the cereal isle!  (recall the IOM is not recommending sugar be one of the FOP nutrients - to my dismay).  I prefer these nutrient amount systems to a symbol because -at this time - the use of the symbol or even a nutrient score (if you have seen NuVal) does not tell YOU the consumer, what the per serving amounts of any nutrient (hi or lo) has to be to qualify for the symbol.  A symbol system also doesn't quantify the amount per serving of the  nutrients that we are advised to limit.

I could not get a good photo of tuna, but the heart check symbol below is on my Bumble Bee canned light tuna in water.  If you want to know how the tuna earned the symbol, you can go the American Heart Association website and read it there (they are responsible for the mark).  I am not meaning that I do not want to tell you, but that if you are at the store buying the tuna, you will not know how it earned that "healthy" mark.

The IOM is considering which type of label to recommend.  It might be like those below or the multiple traffic light I showed yesterday, or a symbol like a heart check.  For a symbol system, the serving size of the food in question would have to meet a criteria of no more than x grams of sodium, sat and trans fat, and the calories per serving would have to be included.  I am against the symbol because I want to see the amount of fat, and sugar, and sodium myself.  However, if that is what they choose, I can always refer to the NFP.

The reason the IOM was tasked with this project is because there is a current lack of standardization and transparency.   With different FOP schemes, consumers are NOT empowered to make wise decisions as some of the facts may be hidden.  Nor can they compare across products in a timely manner because the displays don't tell the same things.  Further, with the symbol or score, the manufacturer or retailer may give a "symbol" to a product because it is low in fat while that same product may be high in sugar or sodium (remember the fat free products that made us all gain weight!).