Added sugar: Proposed food label would say how much to eat

The nutrition facts label may one day help figure that out.

Susan Mayne, director of the Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition at the FDA, said on a conference call with reporters that the agency hoped to partner with other federal agencies on educating consumers on the distinction between total sugar and added sugar, since both would be on the label.

Jim O’Hara, health promotion policy director at the Center for Science in the Public Interest, said the move was a “major public health victory“, adding: “It’s about time consumers knew that a 20-ounce soda has 130 percent of the added sugars they should consume each day”.

The F.D.A. considered scientific evidence presented by the 2015 Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee, which showed it is hard to meet nutrient needs and stay within calorie requirements if one exceeds 10% of total calories from added sugar.

So if a food label says something has 50 grams of added sugars, the per cent daily value for added sugars would be listed as 100 per cent.

It added: “When sugars are added to foods and beverages to sweeten them, they add calories without providing additional nutrients“.

The Food and Drug Administration on Friday proposed that nutrition facts labels include the percentage of your recommended daily intake of added sugars in a food item – the “per cent daily value”.

“The FDA has a responsibility to give consumers the information they need to make informed dietary decisions for themselves and their families”, Mayne said. But they just give sugar content in grams, not in terms of daily recommended intake.

Nutrition experts welcomed the proposal, which is up for public review and comment for 75 days.

“Currently, there is no good way to decipher between added sugars and naturally existing types, such as what’s found in dairy and fruit”, said Dana Angelo White, an assistant clinical professor of athletic training and sports medicine at Quinnipiac University in Hamden, Conn. “These natural sugars have much more to offer in the nutrition department compared to highly processed and refined sweeteners”.

In addition, the FDA is also releasing results of its consumer studies on the declaration of added sugars and the footnote and on the label format.

However, some GMA members agree with the American Diabetes Association and the American Heart Association that listing added sugars will help consumers identify foods with more empty calories.