The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has announced a June 26, 2014, public meeting in Washington, D.C., to discuss two proposed rules aimed at updating nutrition information and serving size requirements on Nutrition and Supplement Fact labels. Introduced 20 years ago, the Nutrition and Supplements Facts labels “help consumers make informed food choices and maintain healthy dietary practices.” Among others, the agency has proposed the following changes: (i) to require information about “added sugars”; (ii) to update daily values for nutrients such as sodium, dietary fiber and Vitamin D; (iii) to require manufacturers to declare potassium and Vitamin D amounts on the label, because they are new “nutrients of public health significance”; (iv) to change the serving size requirements to reflect how much people “actually” eat; (v) to require that packaged foods, including drinks, that are typically eaten in one sitting be labeled as a single serving and that calorie…
Category Archives Issue 525
In response to Affordable Care Act provisions, requiring restaurants and similar retail food establishments to provide calorie and other nutrition information for menu items, U.S. Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) and a bipartisan group of senators have reportedly requested that the Office of Budget and Management (OMB) review nutrition labeling regulations to “ensure that any measures adopted will allow flexibility for restaurants and avoid unnecessarily burdening food retail establishments where nutrition information is already prevalent.” “Since FDA published its proposed rule to implement nutrition labeling of standard menu items at chain restaurants, many concerns have been raised about the regulations expanding to non-restaurants, such as grocery and convenience stores, where the vast majority of food products are already labeled with nutritional information,” wrote the senators in a May 30, 2014, letter to OMB Administrator Howard Shelanski. “The proposed rule also could affect restaurants with highly variable items or different food service…
