The IOM is not recommending that the amount of sugar in grams or as percent of a reference diet or as high, med or low be added to a FOP signpost or used in a formula that qualifies a food for a symbol. It seems that they are leaning towards either of those two options (nutrient specific content or a symbol (like the Heart Check).
Recall that FOP is not to take the place of the Nutrition Facts Panel but to aid consumers in making better choices. The FOP label can help by comparing products by the amount of the nutrients we are encouraged to limit that they contain per serving. Those have been identified by the IOM committee as saturated and trans fat, sodium and calories.
The committee offers two specific reasons for not including sugar in grams or as a percent or as high, low or medium - one is that there is not a consensus from the experts that sugar itself is a cause of disease. In other words, if a person consumed a lot of sugar but met his or her daily requirements for protein, good fat, vitamins and minerals and fiber without going over the calories required to meet daily total expenditure needs - than sugar might not be harmful. Of course, diets high in sugar are almost ALWAYS too high in calories. Secondly, the IOM states that differentiating between intrinsic or natural sugars and those that are added is TOO HARD. As the CSPI and the AHA have asked the FDA to include sugars in FOP systems and to create a category that allows them to be considered HIGH per a RACC (reference amount customarily consumed) and because the WHO and the Food Standards Agency - FSA (in Europe) have found a way to do this, I feel the IOM Committee is wrong.
I reviewed the Multiple Traffic Light - MTL- criteria more closely because at the end of the IOM report they had four or five different products, across food categories which they compared by the systems and symbols. Previously, when I looked at the MTL criteria I saw that more than 12g per serving would make a product red for sugar. When reviewing the IOM comparison charts, 1% chocolate milk had 22 g of sugar but an amber mark. That is when I went to the web site and learned that they could differentiate between the added and naturally occurring sugars. The added has to be less than 12 when the total is over 5 g. You can see the standards and learn about this particular system here. That did explain why the chocolate milk was not red.
As I have been reading this for days, my attention to labels is even more astute which leads me to the O&E for today.
Natural - I opened a can of pumpkin today and noticed that it had 4g of sugar per serving (123g). I thought, hmm - is that intrinsic or added? The Nutrition Facts panel does not have to specify and the FOP systems usually say total grams without breaking them up. As an informed consumer, I knew that I might figure it out by looking at the ingredients list. Recall that the labeling law requires ingredients to be listed by highest amount. The first and ONLY ingredient on this can was "pumpkin". Very good food - GREEN all around.
Added - I bought a new sweet snack today because it was on sale and because sometimes at night I have a taste of sugary things. (I am that rare person who does not eat a whole box or bag of sweets, but can also refrain from eating a whole 100 calorie pack!) So when I got home and after I had my pumpkin experience, I thought - OH let me see that snack. Here is the biggest shocker - it is a Snack Wells product - doesn't that IMPLY good for you. Well, it has 19 grams of sugar for only 30 grams of product. How is that possible. That is the epitome of a energy dense nutrient poor food. It also has 2.5 g of saturated fat per package (30g). I was stunned - there would be no green symbols on this one.
As I was looking at these products I was also thinking of my favorite FOP system the multiple traffic light and making the determination through the FSA criteria that the pumpkin would get Green across all four categories and the snack would be mostly RED -esp considering that the serving size is 30g - much lower than the reference for small RACC which is 50g. It would be red for sugar and at least yellow for everything else. The FSA provide criteria per 100 grams and the salt value is also in grams not mgs as is custom in the USA. I was surprised that the caramel popcorn was also high in saturated fat - 2.5 g per 30 g is very high.
I noticed that there is a MTL signpost version with a place for calories. I mention that because the MTL has three of the four categories that are recommended by the IOM and if we add calories, then it has them all (plus the sugar). Not all versions put the nutrients in the context of a daily value either, but since the IOM wants that too- I chose to copy the version that covers all of these. See below.
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