I’ve never been one to count calories. In fact, I’ve always been critical of those who do. It seems like the ones who count are the ones eating bad food. Though, truth be told, I’ve also been thin most of my life and the weight-gaining issue has not been of much concern. That said, I’m at a point in my life where I consume so little processed foods that I don’t know where to find the numbers. And that’s my main critique – if you eat food that has no label (i.e. whole foods) – you don’t have to focus on the caloric intake.
But my world is not the real world.
For better or for worse, most Americans eat food from a package. And on that package comes a label. Understanding the “terms of engagement” are crucial to eating packaged foods and not gaining weight, raising blood-sugar levels or cholesterol, or any of the other ailments related to processed foods.
When I was growing up I remember learning that the average person should consume 2,500 calories a day. At different moments over the years I recall the feeling of wanting to know my caloric intake. Our culture is so obsessed with image that even the skinny folk (like me) start to wonder about these things. No matter how often the thought crossed my mind, I never had the desire to carry a calculator with me. The idea of literally counting calories at each meal seemed insane. Today, it still seems insane.
Luckily, for those who want to count but lack the calculator or the time to calculate, the FDA (Food and Drug Administration) makes it easy for you. In 1991, Congress passed the Nutrition Labeling and Education Act. Thereafter, packaged foods were required to provide an easy-to-read label of all the important nutrients in the food item.
On the one hand, the “nutrition facts” label is great for all the health-minded citizens who want to know the nutritional benefits of the food they eat. The labels provide the consumer both ‘nutritional facts’ of the food, but also explain the suggested serving size for the item. For all the desired transparency provided by the nutrient list, there remained a troubling technicality. Yes, the consumer could now determine if the food had the right amount of calories or sodium or fats or sugar, but the necessary equation to decipher the actual amounts of these nutrients was missing.
Take this label for example,
Tilamook's "Oregon Black Cherry Ice Cream"
According to the label, one serving of this ice cream has 9 grams of fat, five of which are saturated; 18 grams of carbohydrates (most of which are likely sugar), and 3 grams of sugar. (Note: when a food item has a high carbohydrate number, look to see if the sugar number is close in rank. Often, carbohydrates in highly processed foods are actually simple carbs, i.e. sugar.) Now, depending on what kind of ice cream you enjoy, this label may or may not impress (or intimidate) you.
What should surprise you is the quantity of these “nutrients” in relation to the quantity of the serving. On this ice cream container, Tillamook states that there are 14 servings. Each serving is a 1/2 cup.
Herein lies a serious problem.
When eating ice cream, who in the world eats a half cup for dessert?! Nobody in their right mind (sugar-addicted state of mind that is) would feel satisfied by a 1/2 cup of ice cream. If you own an ice cream scooper, go into your kitchen and figure out the size of the scoop. Then determine how many (on average) scoops you put in your bowl when you serve ice cream. If you’re a good host or a dessert lover, I am certain the quantity exceeds half a cup.
This discrepancy on the label is up for debate at the moment. In the context of rising rates of obese children and adults, the FDA is reconsidering the “nutrient fact” label on processed food items. Even though the numbers are there for all to see, the serving sizes do not match up with the average American diet.
On Friday, The New York Times published “One Bowl = 2 Servings. F.D.A. May Fix That.” According to the article, the FDA is under pressure to change the presentation of serving size data on food labels. Considering our cultural appetite for processed foods, it seems that the consumers need to see a more explicit presentation of serving size. To find out that a couple cookies or a handful of potato chips, actually provide hundreds of calories to one’s diet – should startle the average consumer, not get them to eat more.
I suppose my desire for the production of processed foods to suddenly end is nowhere in sight. And maybe our world will remain saturated with labels informing us of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ decisions. But as long as we rely on labels to influence our decisions, I think I’ll try to stay away from labeled food.
Related posts:
- Homemade candy bars (or) A drug of choice?
- Eggs (weekly menu 23)
- Losing faith in nutrition
- The Elimination Diet and a Cleanse
- The Food Curriculum Project (part V) “Lesson Plan 3″
Tags: diet, FDA, food literacy
I want to push back on the food labeling thing in a different way. I do most of my grocery shopping at the coop, I strive to eat more whole foods and all that. I find the labels of what “foods” contain to be very useful, particurally when it comes to dairy. I am faced with a case of seemingly similar yogurts, milk and cream products (cream and half and half). When buying cream the list of ingredients has been useful in determining which product is cream and which product contains other things too. With yogurt it helped me find cultural revolution because it had the least amount of sugar in a vanilla yogurt with no icky additives.
In a world where “local,” “organic,” “healthy,” “no additives,” and “pure” are marketing tags as well a principals we eat by, we need food labels. These labels need to tell us what is in our food, both ingredients and the grams of sodium, fat, calories, and so forth so we can choose what is healthy and whole. I don’t trust the sellers of even the simplest foods that the marketing key words match the product they are selling. And in order to find the raisins with the least sugar and the organic cream that actually conforms to my definition of cream, these labels help.