Nutrition Labeling for Today's Needs: Opinions of Nutritionists, the Food Industry, and Consumers

摘要

Five hundred and thirty-one members of the American Institute of Nutrition, 177 persons from the food industry, and 107 consumers from a Food and Drug Administration mailing list responded to a survey dealing with nutrition labeling of foods. They identified obesity and heart disease as the major diet-related national health problems and chose as most useful to the public information about calories, sodium, fat, protein, iron, calcium,and carbohydrates. Although industry respondents opposed the suggestion, the other respondents favored providing information about sugars, starch, and fiber along with total carbohydrates. The current means of declaring micronutrient content, percent, of U.S. Recommended Daily Allowance per serving, was chosen as the best available method. Respondents were divided as to whether declarations should be made of substances not in the product and whether disease-related claims should be permitted on food labels. It was widely agreed that simplicity and ease of understanding should be the major goals of any revision of food labels.