The U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s Nutrition Facts product labels are due for a refresh. Basically unchanged since they first appeared in the 1990s, the FDA’s proposed new labels (above, right) would be more consumer-friendly, with easier-to-understand calorie and serving size information, and would include added sugars as a percentage of recommended daily intake. For example, the label on a typical 20-ounce bottle of soda, which has 65 grams (16 teaspoons) of added sugar, would explain that this is 130% of a person’s recommended daily added sugar intake, which is about 12 teaspoons for a typical 2,000-calorie-a-day diet.
FDA is soliciting comments on the proposed new format and will issue new product labeling rules in 2016.
