August 27, 2021 • 56 mins
These disclosures of packaged foods’ nutritional content exist at the strange intersection of science, corporate interests, public health, and lawmaking. Anney and Lauren do a number on the convoluted history of nutrition labels in the United States.
Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:08):
Hello, and welcome to Savor Prediction of I Heart Radio.
I'm Any and I'm Lauren vocal Bam, and today we
have an episode for you about nutrition labels. Yes, which
was a suggestion from you, Lauren. Was there any particular
reason this was on your mind? Uh? This was this
was a listeners suggestion from way in the way back. Um.
(00:30):
And you know, sometimes I'll be going through our idea
spreadsheet and just going like I don't know, like, like
what what is in here that we just haven't thought
about in a minute, And this popped up? And forgive
me for whoever it was that suggested this a I
think it was in and be I did not put
(00:52):
your name in the notes. If it was you, thank you. Uh.
But yeah, this is something that's like never that far
from my mind because whenever I'm in a grocery store,
especially having like the kind of food sensitivities that I do, Um,
it's really important for me to annoyingly important for me
to read the nutrition labels of all of the products
(01:13):
that I'm buying, because you know, like people just love
putting bell peppers and stuff just all over the place.
And I don't know why people like it. Oh, here's
a safe dessert, Bell Pepper. I'm starting to feel like
it's personal. Um, that's the only logical explanation I think.
(01:37):
But but yeah, yeah, so um so so I'm always
looking at that kind of thing and um, and they
are a strange beasts, they really are. Um. And this
episode had so many papers written on it that were
really dense, fascinating, very very ins um and just bought
(02:03):
up things that I never considered of like, oh, yeah,
how did they arrive at that number? Sure? Um, yeah,
and there. I mean, I feel like this is going
to be this is like like a longer outline, like
like one of our longer outlines of late Um. And
it's kind of going to be a brief overview because
like we were, we were both saying before we started recording,
(02:25):
like there were a lot of rabbit holes that we
just chose not to go down because we were like, Nope,
that could be a different episode. Yeah. Yeah, and for sure,
like sometimes peek behind the curtains, I think it's probably
is true for most shobs, but sometimes the timing works
out very interestingly. So for this current week that we
were researching this for reasons, a lot of reasons I've
(02:47):
had to research at night, like late at night, and
so when you're trying to research like nutrition facts and
labels and math and percentages at three in the morning,
your brain reaches a point where you're like, you're not
you're not getting this. You're writing something down that you
(03:08):
don't understand. Step back. Yeah, you know that processing thing
that you usually do when you intake information. That's not
what you're doing right now, buddy. Yeah, this one was
more math heavy too, so it was like a confluence. Yeah,
for sure. Well, I'm I'm sorry for suggesting a difficult
(03:30):
one in the middle of your birthday week. It's Annie's
birthday week, y'all. Everybody wish her a happy birthday. I
just waved as if I can see all of you,
but thank you for your wishes happy birthday that I'm
going to assume that you gave me in response to that. No,
it was no problem. It was really interesting. It's it
was just funny that sometimes the timing works out that
(03:51):
way where, Yeah, I want to ask that you ever
play in elementary school game where you had you had
kind of like hand sized regular balls and that was
your fat, it represented fat, and then you had these
like small balls that were yellow and they represent cholesterol,
(04:14):
and you had your like little cube that was taped
onto the floor and you were trying to keep out
the fat and cholesterol. And then at the end you
got points tallied up for how much you had inside
of your little Um. The short answer is no. Um.
The long answers, that's bonkers. What the heck? Uh? Oh
(04:40):
my heck? And goodness the okay, all right, my dudes,
The little like nutrition science part of my brain is
angry about this on a deep number of levels. You
don't think my physical education class with representatives of different
(05:05):
sizes of balls and point numbers nutrition learning experience for me?
I um no, nope, all right, emphatic note I didn't
like it either. It was also very intense. It was
very stressing. Yeah that that just from a purely like
(05:27):
game standpoint, that sounds like a very stressful game. It
was very stress and also like I think that young
like depending on the age group, like elementary school, Lauren
definitely would have gotten mad about it and started like
like removing the balls by any means necessary, like mostly
pegging fellow classmates with them. So I'm not saying I'm
(05:52):
the fanos of elementary school games. But I kind of
sounds like what you're saying. I don't know. M mmm. Um. Also, yes,
you can see our episode we don on expiration dates,
which really interesting one. Also interestingly, our margarine episode and
(06:12):
I think our types of milk episode we touch on
some of this stuff we're gonna touch on in this one. Yeah. Yeah.
Also um, our sugar episodes um. And relatedly our miracle
berry episode. Yes, right, so weird, so weird, okay, um.
(06:34):
But um, I suppose this brings us to our question.
I love when you asked that with a question, But yes,
I think it does. Nutrition labels what are they? Well? Uh,
nutrition labels are disclosures UM that producers of some types
(06:58):
of food and drink products are required by their government
to post clearly on the packaging of each product that
they produce, UM, so that a potential customer can see
at a glance, uh, several things about that product, generally
including the ingredients, caloric content per serving, um, how many
servings the package contains, and the content of several macro
(07:21):
and micro nutrients um. In the United States, as of
right now, I'm pretty sure uh, these labels must include
calories total fat, saturated fat, trans fat, cholesterol, sodium, total carbohydrate,
dietary fiber, total sugars, added sugars, protein, vitamin D, calcium, iron,
(07:41):
and potassium. All of those macro and micronutrients are listed
in both the amount UM and the percentage of recommended
daily intake. That that amount represents UM and and the
percentage of recommended daily in cake is assuming that you
(08:02):
are an average healthy human person consuming approximately two thousand
calories per day UM, which many of us are not.
So that's hilarious anyway. Um. The labels also have to
state whether UM eight common allergens may be present, and
that's milk, egg shellfish, fish, tree nuts, wheat, peanuts, and soybeans. Um.
(08:24):
And also it has to list the name and the
address of the producer and there you go. UM. So,
I mean, you know that's that's like a long list
of stuff, but it seems like something that you know
that the creation and regulation of should be fairly straightforward,
right like like in these are modern times, there are
(08:46):
science ways to tell what kinds of molecules are in
a substance UM and in one amounts, and there are
whole databases of accepted amounts of these substances that different
food ingredients possess on average. So if you you know,
do that sans yourself, or look at those databases and
then combine the results of that with an honest list
of what all ingredients you used to make a product,
(09:08):
you know, like boom nutrition label. Right, No, of course not.
There are just all kinds of complications. It's it's complications
all the way down, um, at the very top level,
you know. It's it's it's like we say pretty much
(09:29):
every episode, you know, like like human bodies are complicated.
Nutrition is complicated, um, And humanity's knowledge of how the
human body works is changing constantly. So so even the
decision of what's pertinent to put on these labels is
changing constantly. And then there are any number of reasons
(09:49):
why producer might not want to disclose every little thing
about their product. Um. Some some are earnest, This recipe
is proprietary, and I don't want to tell the world
exactly what goes in to my spice blend for it,
because then someone might reproduce it and this is my business,
you know. Um. Some some reasons are a little tricksier,
you know, like maybe a producer is afraid that health
(10:12):
conscious consumers won't buy their product if they see how
much fat or sugar is in it, and rather than reformulate,
they would prefer to fudge the numbers a little. Um.
So the creation of these labels, from the regulation around
them to the compliance with those regulations is uh fraught
(10:32):
at worst, and honestly, at best, it's just it's just messy. Um.
Every government that requires these labels has a lot to
take into consideration and a lot of voices in their ears. Um.
When the system works well, you know, you as a
consumer can walk into a store and pick up a
product and feel confident that you know what's in it
(10:52):
and how it will fit into your diet. Um. But
how we go about trying to make that happen is
is a continual and strange process. Yeah. As ofen UM,
nutrition labels were mandatory in the United States, Canada, Mexico, Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Paraguay, Uruguay,
(11:15):
the European Union, Russia, Israel, the Gulf Cooperation Council, UM, Nigeria, India,
Hong Kong, China, Japan, South Korea, Malaysia, Taiwan, Thailand, the Philippines, Indonesia, Vietnam, Australia,
and New Zealand. And I know that that's like a
long list of countries, and I'm I felt weird about
including it, but then I felt weird about not including it.
(11:35):
I don't know, like so much of so much of
the information that we've got for y'all today is so
US centric that I was just like, now, just go
ahead and do this at the very least, um h. Yeah.
And and then so those are those are places where
Nutritian labeling is mandatory. Um. It is furthermore voluntary in
a bunch of other countries, and those are Venezuela, Turkey, Switzerland, Morocco, Lebanon, George, Singapore, Brunei,
(12:01):
me and mar Vietnam, Kenya, Mauritius, and South Africa. And yeah,
there are both national and international organizations um that that
study what different places are doing and how it's working
and how it might be improved. Yes, yes, and I
(12:21):
have a Seinfeld reference. Uh of course. Yeah. This this
episode is actually very strange because looking back, it feels
so odd. But there's a whole episode about like fat free,
the fat free yogurt talked about in Our Our yogurt episode. Okay, sure, sure, yeah,
(12:42):
we talk I think we talked about this episode then too.
There's a whole episode about that, and um, everybody in
this show is in heavy quotes gaining weight. Um because
they're eating this yogurt. They're like, it's not fat free.
It can't be. So they steal sample of the ogret
to go get it tested and then uh some something
(13:06):
else spills into it, so the test gets ruined. Anyway,
The weird part is Rudy Giuliani, isn't it. Yeah. Times
change in a lot of ways and don't change in others.
But it was a good like and it was like
(13:26):
how he won slash lost the election was the fighting
the frozen yogurt like accurately labeled, Uh so people knew
what they were getting. Interesting, fascinating. Yeah, But speaking of
what about the nutrition the nutrition of a nutrition label? Sure,
(13:49):
don't don't eat nutrition labels. They're not food. All right?
All right, have you ever had that moment where you're like,
because we were just talking about cheese, and I have
a lot of cheese for other various reasons most of
the bird, but the other day I was eating to
get like the piece of the rind and I'm like,
(14:12):
I'm not sure I'm supposed to eat this. This might
be paper. Yeah, yeah, I always. I frequently have that
question about cheese. Is I'm like, is this wax? Is
this cheese? Is this? What is? Well? When in doubt,
I just eat it when in doubt, Oh dear, that's
(14:33):
our lesser known motto. Well, we do have some numbers
for you. Yes, yes, we do. Yes. In when the
U s f d A, along with the Department of
Health and Human Services released the first Dietary Guidelines for
Americans with the intent of updating them every five years. UM.
(14:54):
When they first released them, there were seven guidelines and
two thous five they were forty one, so they are
constantly re evaluating and updating and adding stuff. Yeah, oh yes,
oh yes. Also, um, it does cost money for producers
to create nutrition labeling for their products. Um. And there
are all kinds of lab and database and consultation services
(15:16):
out there, but generally it seems like it costs in
current one United States dollars a little over a grand
to get the information you need about a product for
your label. And that's to say nothing of the cost
of actually getting those labels printed. And implemented. UM. And
of course, UM, every time that there's a change in
label regulation, as we're talking about happening constantly, you do
(15:40):
have to get new labeled data done and get that
label drawn up and change your packaging. UM. When the
FDA was looking into changing its labeling guidelines in a
big way in the ninety nineties, UM, it recognized that
the printing costs alone would cost the food industry some
seven and fifty six million dollars. Wow. Yeah, But it
(16:05):
was deemed important because like, nutrition is kind of a
big part of health. UM, and it's a big concern. UM.
Non communicable diseases, you know, like cancer, heart disease, diabetes,
stuff like that account for of human deaths globally. UM.
That's according to the World Health Organization. And poor diet
(16:27):
is a major risk factor of those. And according to
Tough Nutrition and Health Letter, people who consult nutrition labels
consume fewer calories and less total fat, saturated fat, cholesterol,
and added segars than non label users, But only sixty
one point six percent of those surveys said that they
regularly check the Nutrition Facts Panel. Usage of other label
(16:48):
resources was even lower, fifty one point six percent check
the ingredients list, forty seven point two percent look at
the serving size, and forty three point eight percent consider
health claims when pondering a food purchase. Huh yeah um,
and other studies have found upwards of people don't believe
health labeling on products. Yeah, but you know there we're
(17:13):
going to talk about some nefarious actors in the field
and practices and past. Sure. Yeah, yeah, I mean, you know,
it's I think I think moving moving forward with with
healthy skepticism is always good. But um, but gosh, yeah,
I I feel like I believe in them too much.
(17:34):
I'm like, this is science act. Clearly, no one whatever
lie about anything on a food package. How why what they?
How dare they? Yeah? In in that. In that same
research that the FDA was doing in the UM, they
were really trying to prove out the the like the
(17:54):
like cost benefit analysis of this whole thing UM, and
they determined that providing consumers with better nutrition information via
these labels would prevent one and seventy nine cancer cases,
four thousand and twenty four cases of cardiovascular disease, and
(18:15):
twelve thousand, nine hundred and two premature deaths over twenty years.
And they put a cash number on this, UM four
point two billion dollars in social benefits, worker productivity, healthcare savings,
all of that over the next twenty years UM. They
estimated in comparison UM that the cost of implementing these
(18:36):
labeling changes that they were proposing would be around two
point six billion dollars. So they were like, they were like,
forget about saving lives, because like, if all you're looking
at is the money, then I guess screw people. Um.
But but just in terms of money, you know, you're
you're saving like like at least a billion and a
(18:58):
half bucks by implementing these changes, and probably a lot
of people too, if you want to care about that
sort of if you care about yeah, wow, so big deal. Um. Obviously,
there's been a lot of research into the money aspect
(19:18):
and the life saving aspect and just the health overall
health aspect of that. I have found that really interesting
because I feel like, through this show, I've seen these
peaks and loads of people caring about health and not
caring so much, and so that does really impact what
it ends up on the label. Yeah, yeah, and right,
And I mean I don't know, like it's there. There's
(19:39):
so much I feel like there's a really huge gap
and assumption between like the fact that you put a
label out there and right like like you were saying
like this, this tough research was saying, um that that
someone's going to take that to heart and use it
in an appropriate way. Um. But but they've researched it
more than I have. They certainly have, UM. And I
(20:03):
was kind of reminded a couple of years ago. I
used to be somebody would bake a lot of stuff
and bringing them into the office back in the day,
and I would make a lot of healthy stuff. And
I remember once I made these they were really good,
delicious muffins, and they were, you know, really healthy and
low calory. And one of our coworkers was like, I
don't trust anything like this because I don't trust what's
(20:25):
in it. And I was like, well, I made it,
um even so, and she was like, no, but it
just doesn't make sense, like what is in it. I
was like, this thing and this thing and this thing,
here's the recipe. So that's just an interesting aspect to
you of of human nature, to me of like this,
(20:46):
always we have our experiences and assumptions that we operate
off of um, and that's what this nutrition label is
having to grapple with, is all of that, the company
side and the government side, in the human nature side.
It isn't. It is an interesting puzzle and it has
(21:06):
it is one that we have been coping with for
her for a hot minute. Yes, and speaking of a
hot minute, we do have a hot bit of history
for you. We do, and we will get into that
as soon as we get back from a quick break
for a word from our sponsor, and we're back, Thank
(21:32):
you sponsored, Yes, thank you. So, as we said, a
lot of what we're going to be talking about is
based in the United States. Um, that we're going to
touch on other countries and that information is absolutely out there.
So that being said, international listeners, as always, I would
love to hear from you, oh yeah, yeah, yeah, and
if um, if, if you know, off the top of
(21:53):
your head of a particularly interesting story, we would be
happy to do a whole episode. But yeah, like like
that's this would have been a much there's you guys.
There's a lot of governments out there, as it turns out, Yeah,
but a lot, a lot a lot of them looking
into this whole nutrition puzzle piece and how to communicate
that effectively to the public. So yeah, it's a lot
(22:17):
um alright. So nutrition labels in the US really got
started around the nineteen sixties. Certain foods that the Food
and Drug Administration are the f t A labeled as
for quote special dietary uses, meaning foods that could be
used to meet knees caused by physical, pathological, or similar conditions. Um.
Those foods have labels detailing their sodium and or calories
(22:41):
on them um. From nineteen forty one to about nineteen
sixty one. There were several reasons at play when it
came to the lack of labeling. One reason was that
most people were cooking at home with pretty simple ingredients.
The other related reason was this was before food processing,
so people weren't really questioning what was in their food.
(23:03):
That coworker at our office like, what isn't here? Yeah
I made it? Yeah yeah. I mean you know, for
for for most of human history, um, the food production
happened in in homes or in shops, um and so
uh and and and locally and so you know, you
weren't before the Industrial Revolution, it wasn't really a question rights, right. Um.
(23:29):
That being said, there were labels even earlier than this,
going back to some food born outbreaks in the eighteen
fifties in the U s including the high profile death
of US President Zachary Taylor, who was believed to have
died at her eating some bad fruit and drinking some
bad milk. President Lincoln created the U s d A
in eighteen sixty two in response, and the USDA crafted
(23:52):
some strict guidelines on food processing and handling. And I
think that's another theme, like we're not going to go
through that as much, but I kept thinking king of
like the Jungle Sinclair's The Jungle. There these big moments
in history where people like, wait, what is this? Oh
yeah yeah yeah, and and we and we We've talked
about that in a bunch of different episodes. Um catch
(24:12):
up was a big one. Stuff like that. Yeah yeah
yeah um. Others. Other researchers have pointed out that due
to miss labeling around bread weight, food labeling technically goes
back even further like the Middle Ages, but that was
much more you know, this is how much this piece
of bread? Weys sure sure? Or or you know, like
(24:35):
like various other things like um like like we talked
about in our Cheddar episode. Um uh you know, like
how much how much milk fat would have been going
into different products like that. So yeah, yeah, cheese is
a good one to bring up in this conversation. Yes,
lots of scandals with the cheese. In six the First
(24:57):
Food and Drugs Act past, illegalizing interstate sales of miss
branded and or adulterated foods, drinks, and drugs, and in
the U Supreme Court took it a step further, decrying
any misleading or deceptive info provided by a company about
a food product, even if true, was illegal, So even
if it was just kind of like I guess, yeah, misleading. Yeah.
(25:23):
Then of course there was the Oleo Margarine Act, enacted
in nineteen fifty to distinguish colored margarine from butter yes,
and then in the Food Additives Amendment required manufacturers to
name all the additives in their product um And then
that same year, the FDA released their guidelines around foods
(25:43):
generally recognized as safe our grass g r A s,
which we've also talked about quite I think stepping back
a bit, and also future episode because I'm really fascinated
with this now. The first vitamin was isolated in nine. Yeah. Yeah,
the entire discussion around macro and micro nutrients, um and
(26:04):
I and I kind of covered that earlier, but but
just in case anyone is confused by those terms, um
uh no shame in it. Uh. Macronutrients are things like
protein and fat and carbohydrate that are the the the
big components of our diets. And then the micronutrients are
the vitamins and minerals and stuff like that. So uh
yeah yeah, um for yeah, for most of human history,
(26:25):
we didn't know how all that worked. We were just like, well,
we feel full when we eat this meat, and we
you know, dialusue when we eat vegetables, um scurvy. Yeah. Yeah,
but but but right we we didn't start knowing what
those molecules are and what they're doing, or or compounds
are and what they're doing, um until basically the nineteen hundreds. Yeah,
(26:52):
which is wild to think about anyway, I know. Um Okay,
So all of this of you know, kind of minimal
wabeling in the US changed course in the fifties and sixties.
When processed food entered the mainstream American diet, people understandably
(27:12):
were a little concerned and perhaps just curious what was
in their food and kept requesting for this information. And
because of all this, the nineteen sixty nine White House
Conference on Food, Nutrition and Health received a recommendation suggesting
that they come up with a way to quantify and
communicate the nutritional qualities of food products. And here's a
(27:33):
quote from that conference. Every manufacturer should be encouraged to
provide truthful nutritional information about his products to enable consumers
to follow recommended dietary regiments. The FDA took this suggestion
to heart and got to work on it right away.
They consulted prominent figures in the food industry, producers and nutritionists.
They tested out a few labels. In nineteen seventy two,
(27:56):
the FDA released a proposed format for nutrition labels on
packaged foods. These labels were optional outside of foods that
made some level of nutritional claim in any way, whether
that was in the labeling or in the advertising. They
implemented this as an extension of the Food, Drug and
Cosmetic Act that determined that a food was not branded
(28:17):
correctly if it quote fails to reveal facts material in
the light of such representation. Okay, okay, so yes. These
regulations went to effect in nineteen seventy three. They required
that The label included information on the calorie, protein, and
carbohydrates UM, all contents of all those, along with the
recommended daily percentages of vitamins A and C, calcium, thiamin, riboflavin, niacin, iron,
(28:43):
and proteins. The manufacturer could also include info on the
saturated fats, polyunsaturated fatty acids, and sodium if they so desired.
These numbers were to be calculated based on an average
serving size UM. All of these numbers were based on
the Recommended Dietary Allowance the rd A, calculated by the
(29:03):
National Academy of Sciences UH. The numbers were, for the
most part, the highest value for any given r d
A nutrient for men and women who weren't pregnant or lactating.
And yes, I did try to. This is where my
brain was like, stop it, you're not understanding this. I
think you're communicating what they did. But yes, I was interested.
(29:28):
Oh how I've never thought about that? How did they
arrive at these numbers? Oh? Sure, yeah, the whole process. Yes, UM.
The U s d AS Food Safety and Inspection Service
provided similar numbers for meat and poultry was sort of
separately regulated. UM. Despite this, a lot of companies were
out there making false claims, and a case reached the
(29:51):
Supreme Court in ninety three, the court ruled that nutrition
labels had to be included on all foods that we're
making any type of health claim in. The Federal Trade Commission,
along with the f d A and U s d A,
conducted hearings on problems and possible improvements of these nutrition labels,
and they called for them to be made mandatory. Yeah.
(30:13):
Across the nineteen seventies, there was a lot of concern
and activism from various communities about all of this. UM.
Consumer advocate groups like the Center for Science and the
Public Interest started really pushing for like more better labeling information, UM,
including for a type of product that we haven't mentioned yet,
alcohol and more on that in a minute. Yes. Moving
(30:36):
into the nineteen eighties, interest in health and nutrition was rising,
partly in thanks to the National Research Council's paper Diet
and Health Implications for Reducing Chronic Disease Risk, and also
the Surgeon General's Report on Nutrition and Health. These papers
really recommended things like cutting back on fat and were
instrumental in forming these ideas around health in America. Yeah,
(31:00):
and and right, like Uh, like we said earlier, Um,
we do talk about this kind of era a lot
in our Sugar and Miracle Berry episodes. Um, so see
those for a little more on that there. In short,
there there were a lot of people, a lot of
science humans doing a lot of really good work, and
also a lot of influence from the sugar industry and
other lobbies. Yes, mucking everything up tremendously. So yes, yes indeed.
(31:25):
Oh and also, as we mentioned in our serial episode
in Kellogg's, in conjunction with the National Cancer Institute, started
a campaign of using the back label to to out
the link between fiber consumption and too possible loweral rates
of certain types of cancer. And when the FDA didn't
come after them, other companies started doing similar things. So
(31:46):
this really opened the door for a lot of the
you know, like the little box claims you might see
us on I I often do think of cereals or
breakfast products in particular. Yeah, yeah, they're like this has fiber,
you won't get cancer. Go um and write. Yes, it's
a very specific and narrow claim that again might technically
(32:09):
not be untrue, but might be a little bit misleading,
yes for sure. Um okay, but even At this time,
there still wasn't any like really standardized nutrition label in
Dr Lewis W. Sullivan, who was the Secretary of the U.
S Department of Health and Human Services at the time,
(32:30):
called on the FDA to revise the food label UM,
and on a separate occasion said, as consumers shop for
healthier food, they encounter confusion and frustration. The grocery store
has become a tower of babel and consumers need to
be linguists, scientists and mind readers to understand the many
labels that they see appreciated Yeah, I'm like a O
(32:53):
snap and be uh yeah, absolutely huh. A period of
public comment was opened across the country, and as scientific advancements,
new dietary recommendations, individual states where they were getting in
on this food safety game, and all this labeling happening
um within the manufacturing realm. All of this influenced this
(33:14):
push for a new, clearer, standardized nutrition label. The U. S.
D A signed the Nutrition Labeling and Education Act, which
was an amendment of the Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic
Act into law, and and this decree that all companies
had to keep claims about their products consistent and include
(33:36):
detailed and standardized nutrition information on anything they were intending
to sell. So that's really recent. I was surprised. Yeah,
I don't think I realized that this happened during my lifetime.
Me either, me either. And it's still changing changing. Oh yes.
(33:57):
So with this act, r d as were replaced with
reference Daily Intakes are r D eyes, and guidelines around
serving sizes were given. That's one area where I kind
of chuckled, and it has it's changed a lot. Officials
looked to those two reports that I mentioned earlier to
figure out what vitamins and minerals to include on these labels.
(34:18):
Um Some like total sugars were voluntary unless the product
made some kind of claim about sugar content. The legislation
also called for standardized definitions to be developed and used
so that we were all on the same page when
it came to whatever terminology was being implemented. US Nutrition
Facts labels debuted in it covered a majority of food
(34:43):
products other than alcohol and meat and poultry, which were
meat and poultry were under the jurisdiction of different departments,
so the FDA worked with f S I S to
get the meat and poultry industry on boards. So they
even though they were under different jurisdictions, they did kind
of follow the same path. Yeah um. And there were
a few other exceptions like baby formula, which already had
(35:05):
its own set of rules, and yes, serving sizes or
reference amounts customarily consumed or are a CC were updated
in and okay so um so uh, meat and poultry
a few other exceptions, and then alcohol alcohol also being
under a different jurisdiction. Um, so okay. Brief aside here,
(35:29):
Um that the reason that alcohol does not have to
carry nutrition labels in the United States, despite contributing to
an average of four hundred calories a day to American
diets by some estimates, Um, the reason is prohibition and
tax law. M'm not surprised. Yeah yeah, so okay um um.
(35:51):
After the repeal of prohibition, um, the government was kind
of going like, all right, how can we at least
make some money off of this thing that we've been
railing again that we've finally allowed people to sell and
buy again. Um so um. They passed the Alcohol Administration Act,
which created this new governing body that would eventually become
(36:12):
the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau um or
the t TB for short, and this, uh, this, this
placed control of how alcohol is marketed and sold UM
outside of the FDA's hands by the time the FDA
became a thing. Um. For the most part, there are
some exceptions, because of course there are UM like wines
(36:33):
that contain less than seven percent alcohol UM and beers
that don't contain multi barley those are under FDA regulations. Anyway,
I again, this could be a whole separate episode, and
I'm fascinated by it, so hopefully it will be in
the future. Um. But yeah so um. So. A few
alcohol labeling regulations were happening vaguely in parallel to everything
(36:56):
that was going on with the f D, a UM
and nutrition labels over the years. But I think it's
safe to say that the alcohol industry was largely just
pleased as punch to not have to mess with any
of that, and a number of related lobbies and brands
did put pressure on the government to avoid pushes for
(37:16):
nutrition labeling on alcohol. It's funny how it kind of
backfired for the government, Like all these groups that were like,
oh no, yeah, yeah, it's it's it's a it's a
complicated and fascinating I've got like one more note about it.
But anyway, um uh, continuing with with things that do
have these nutrition labels. Yes, American Heart Association Loss of
(37:41):
certification program that in part included the Heart Check label
on food products, and I imagine a lot of a
lot of you are familiar with that. To get this certification,
the product in question has to be low and cholesterol
and saturated fat and the manufacturer has to make a
payment to the ah AS if you can't afford it.
Co branded kind of thing. Sure. The Farm Bill of
(38:05):
two thousand two required that all fresh meat, poultry, pork,
and lamb come with a country of origin label, and
that one to effect in two thousand nine. But it
was rifles loopholes, and I feel like we've been talking
about that a lot too when we talk about like, uh,
mislabeled seafood or or there's just a lot of instances
of this still being a problem. Yeah, yeah, And I
(38:26):
believe I believe that this was partially influenced by UM
the sponge form and scephalitis mad cow um issues of
that era UM, which we talked about in our Sweetbreads episode.
Mm hmm, yep, wow, this one's I mean, I guess
nutrition does such on all kinds of things, so transpats
(38:49):
were required to be a part of labeling beginning in
two thousand three here in the United States. Also in
two thousand three, the FDA shifted their rules so that
companies no longer had to make health claims based on
quote significant scientific consensus, but now could make them based
on quote some scientific evidence or very limited and preliminary
scientific research. Um. Soon after, in two thousand four, companies
(39:14):
started denoting their healthier products with their own labeling. Again,
I believe we're all very familiar with this. Over the
next decade, similar things happened, with grocery stores and companies
finding new ways to draw attention to healthier options. In
two thousand nine, the FDA sent a letter to Smart Choices,
which is that green check on products. Yeah. Um, And
(39:38):
the FDA was like, stop please, you're confusing people. Stop it. Um.
And it worked, I guess, because only a week later
the programs suspended itself. Well that's that's delightful. I mean, yeah, yeah,
no, no no, no, that that was that was an era.
Yeah no, I guess I had never thought about it.
But um, But the early two thousand's really were a
(40:00):
time when a lot of labeling was coming out that
was very like by this it's healthy. Yeah, and it
wasn't for a few years until like that started getting
shut down. Yeah. And I was thinking about, you know,
when I was a kid, because a lot of this
stuff that I'm thinking of his marketed torch children, and
it would have like the box tops and so you
(40:22):
would get like a monetary, you know, kick back of
eating this thing. And it's also being touted as healthy.
So okay, yeah, it's just kind of predatory in a way,
I guess. Oh absolutely telling parents or guardians this is
(40:42):
good for your kids, and then also you get money
for your school or whatever if you sure. Yeah yeah.
And then right, and then like all kinds of parallel
issues like like use of words like a like natural
that don't that it's not that they mean nothing, it's
just that they don't mean what you think they mean.
Like right, um, and again a whole other, whole other
(41:04):
episode um uh in um. The aforementioned Alcohol and Tobacco
Tax and Trade Bureau made nutrition labels for alcohol optional.
And this is when we started seeing like like you know,
all of those like light beers marketing. They're low calorie counts,
(41:27):
like oh yeah, ultra like only like sixty calories bottle
or sixty carbs or what that's sixty carbs isn't a thing?
Um like like however much whatever that they feel like
saying to you as though it means something. Um, I mean,
and it does. I'm sorry I'm being snarky. Um but yeah.
So so these these rules state that you do not
have to include a nutrition label on your product, on
(41:50):
your alcoholic product, but if you do, you have to
include account of the total calories, carbs, proteins, and fats. However,
you still do not have to list ingredients, um, other
than a few specific substances um that are deemed to
be potentially hazardous like um self fights and certain food dies. Um. So,
so that is the current state of affairs for alcohol
(42:14):
nutrition labeling. That's interesting because I do feel like there's
been I have seen a lot more of that marketing
lately of like there's even uh athletic beer. Yeah, that's
interesting that they're kind of riding this line in between
(42:35):
of only having to provide certain information. Yeah, and that's
that's kind of like like part of what the pushback
against including nutrition labels on these products at all was
for for for decades, because some detractors were going like, well,
they're just going to market it as a health food
if you let them, so, don't don't let them include
(42:57):
any information on it. Um But I don't know. Yeah,
it's it's an interesting problem um food wise though. Um Uh.
Similar nutrition labels to what we've had here in the
US since four only became mandatory across the the European
Union as a whole in um and and those are
(43:18):
a little bit different. Um I think my my, my
data is from twenty five team, so it could very
well have changed since then. Um but uh, I think
that they list all of their nutritional information per a
hundred grams or milli leters of product, not by whatever
arbitrary serving size, um, which has its pros and cons
um And there are a few other differences, like uh,
(43:41):
we list sodium here, they list salt, which are related
but different. Um Uh. There's a rule over there about
um if you list vegetable oil, you have to list
specifically what type. I'm not sure if we've implemented that
here or not. Um Uh. They use codes for common
food additives versus the common names which are mandatory here.
(44:05):
Um So yeah, um, anyone, anyone who's who's familiar, please
right in. I didn't happen to have a labeled food
product from that part of the world in my kitchen
to double check for um uh and then um uh.
All y'all might remember some of the headlines about this
(44:28):
coming out. The FDA changed their labels again, UM, adding
a line for added sugars in grants UM and UH
the percentage of daily recommended in take that that accounts
for UM. The new labels also emphasize serving size by
putting it in bold face, bold type face and giving
it a larger font size. UM. The new labels make
(44:48):
the calories per serving the by far most prominent line
on the label, and they also remove UM. This this
line that the labels previously had for calories from fat. UM.
This used to be on the same line as the
total calories and so it was really drawing attention two
calories from fat and the influence of fat in in
(45:09):
a product. UM. Now fat is just listed along with
the other macronutrients, which I think is great. I think
is a much more honest and straightforward way of going
about things. Yeah, yeah, I mean again, that goes back
to kind of the shifting conversation around health and what
it's been what's bad for us in this country because
I remember when it like all of a sudden, we
(45:30):
were like, wait, sugar, I shouldn't be having fisty grams
of sugar and this one's boonfull looked how much sugar?
Too much sugar. It was just a huge conversation Oh sure, sure, well,
I mean it kind of still is, so, you know, right,
because like all of this is ongoing. UM. There are
all kinds of issues and potential solutions being debated and
(45:53):
implemented to help consumers make more informed choices. UM. One
of the big ones right now is front of package
lay ling UM. And this is something that you can
see in UM in packaged foods. If you find like
like a candy bar from the UK or something, UM,
it's going to have right on the front of the
label like like like calorie count, fat count, stuff like that. UM.
(46:15):
And uh that's that is especially for categories of food
like that like snacks and candies. Another thing being discussed
in a lot of places is UM color coating, like
along the lines of like like like red, yellow, green,
like traffic light style color coding. UM to give a consumer,
even one who who isn't literate, um, and at a
(46:35):
glance rating of like the healthiness of a food or
a menu item um, I mean also menus in general,
like like where and when a food menu has to
include nutrition information or voluntarily includes it. Fascinating stuff it
is it is, and I can I can only imagine
(46:57):
it's I I legitimate, I know it keeps saying this,
but I really am intrigued by human nature because I
feel like, you know, food producers manufacturers fight so hard
for like the green red like whatever, you wouldn't want
your product to be in the red. But then I
feel like there are plenty of people who are like,
give me that junk food. Yeah, I don't care. It's delicious,
(47:20):
are you Yeah, Like it's a fried potato. I'm going
to eat it right now, like you know, and well
and and and also like, oh, I don't know, Like
I'm I'm of a lot of minds about this because
like a thing that we try really hard to do
with this show is to emphasize that like treats are okay,
and that like and that like human diet is super
(47:43):
again super complex, and that you know, there's no one
way that that bodies deal with food, and there's no
one way that you should feel pressured to eat or
to look for hex hecking heck um you know and
and so um, I don't know, it's it's it's just
very There is just so much more research needs to
(48:06):
be done. Yes, our research is needed. I do believe
in informed that's good. Um. But yeah, I think so
much of it we have been misled about how how
our diet should look or what is good and what
is bad. Um. So it is complicated because I'm like, yes,
(48:29):
I want the label, but do I really understand what
this labeled means? Yeah, and and and furthermore, like stop
like like I don't know, like like it can be
a little bit condescending sometimes, like I feel like most
of us know that potato chips aren't the most nutrients
only sounds choice like that's understood. M hum. But I
mean like like yeah, like like sometimes you just want
(48:51):
to eat a heck of potato chip, leave me alone.
That's a good point too. We have enough of that
nonsense guilt food already. Hm hm oh. This is this
is the type of stuff my brain likes to dig into.
I get mad, But I'm also like, oh yeah, so
many different angles nutrition labels. Yeah, yes, yes, well clearly
(49:17):
we'll probably be coming back to discuss more of these
issues we touched on at a later date. Yes, yes,
that is about what we have to say about it today. Um,
we do have some listener mail for you. We do,
but first we have one more group break for word
from our sponsor, and we're back. Thank you sponsoring, Yes,
(49:41):
thank you, and we're back with more people. I wasn't
following you on that one at all. That's it's because
I got distracted halfway. I wanted to do like I
was going to be like a straight read, and then
(50:01):
I was like, it will never work, but it could
be hilarious if I just was like listening mail. And
then I was like, what if I did like a
robot thing? And then I realized that I don't know
how to communicate robot voice very well the robot. Yeah. Yeah, anyway,
well that's what happened. It went in a number of
(50:22):
different places. I think we ended on some peeps and
boots and so that was not not robotic. Um my
favorite SpongeBob episode. Are you SpongeBob listeners? You know what
I'm talking about um. Allison wrote insert longtime listener, first
(50:45):
time caller here. My fame is Allison and I've been
a listeners since the food stuff days. Thank you for
the educational entertainment. I enjoy listening while I work securely
cleaning houses, doing my own chores, and on the occasional run.
There have been many times I've can stitted writing in,
but never expected the Aqua Faba episode to be the
one full disclosure. I didn't have a clue about what
(51:06):
aqua Faba was. Now I know, and it was really interesting.
But what prompted me to send this email was when
you said that chickpeas are also known as garbonzo beans.
I never knew this, so my mind was blown. But
more importantly, hearing the word garbonzo made me realize I
could write in and share that we have pet ducks
that are all food names. When you've asked for pets
(51:30):
of food names in the past, I've always thought of
your typical dogs, cats, hamsters, et cetera. It all started
when we got our first paddling of ducks last year.
Two of them we called Popcorn and butter Fast or
to late winner this year, and we had a terrible
fox attack. Everyone was gone except Butter, who was badly injured.
(51:51):
We tried nursing her to health and adopted another duck
so she wouldn't be alone. We named the new duck
black Bean because she had beautiful black and iridescent feathers. Unfortunately,
Butter didn't make it, but we had black Bean to
comfort as. We got six new ducklings this spring and
decided to name them all after beans. I will attach
(52:11):
a photo identifying them all. The ladies are jelly Bean,
Cocoa Bean, Coffee Bean, Vanilla Bean, and baby black Bean.
And our drake slash Mail is wait for it, Garbanzo Bean.
I think I literally gassed when you said Garvanzo on
the episode, and I knew I had just share with
you all. We love our little duck family. Oh my goodness,
(52:34):
so adorable, the pictures so cute, the names are so good.
Oh I love it. I love a duckling. Yes, I'm good.
My heart feels so warm and full speaking about it. Oh,
I'm so sorry about your duckling disaster, but I'm so
so glad that you have some some some new buddies. Yes,
(52:57):
Um and Alison also from Vermont and built up on
another previous listener mail, we read about coming to Vermont
with even more suggestions. So now we've got food and
ducks to Vermont, so too, excellent excellent lures. Yeah uh,
(53:20):
Megan wrote, I just listened to the zucchini episode and
it answered a question I've had for years. I spent
a couple of years reading all of the Agatha Christie mysteries,
and in one Poirot retires to the country to grow
vegetable morrows or marrows. I'm not sure I never knew
what they were, but thanks to you, now I know
he was growing zucchini. If I recall correctly. He was
(53:41):
not very successful, probably because the plants weren't symmetric enough
for him. I also really appreciate Laurence zutles complaint. The
way food is named and discussed shapes so much of
our expectations and experience with it. In my case, I
want Cincinnati style chili to get rebranded as a meat sauce.
It has so much more in common with the ball
NAIs than a chili, and I imagine a meat sauce
(54:02):
with cinnamon would create less disgust than chili with cinnamon.
So people who are being introduced to it would have
less objections to it being weird. Oh that's interesting, Yeah,
because I totally forgot that brought back my memories of
our when we learned that in the Midwest, in some
(54:23):
places people eat cinnamon rolls with chili, right yeah, yeah,
well well I I always put cinnamon in my chili.
Um uh, cinnamon and cocoa powder are two of my
like little like like like secret ingredient kind of kind
of thing when you're sharing it with us. They're not
really secret there. I don't really have bad at secrets.
(54:45):
Um I just no one tell anyone our savor secret.
You're safe. Here is a safe uh so, so it's
a really but but but I can see where people
would I think that it sounds strange because yeah, but
but yeah, but then there's a whole sentiment roles thing.
(55:05):
So I don't know. I'm still determined to try that,
I think, I mean, and it goes back to so
much what we've been talking about in this episode or
when we're talking about like zoods, and yeah, it does
really impact. It's really your personal experiences and thoughts around
what something is. Um So, I think I believe you
(55:28):
Megan that maybe if you rebranded it as a meat sauce.
For some people, yeah, that would be much easier sell.
That would be so like, yeah, just get it out
of your head that it's chili. It's something different. Um
and yeah. But for other people, they're like, why is
there no cinnamon in my chili? So people are complicated. Yeah, yeah,
(55:52):
all of our relationships with food are very complicated. It's true.
I am glad we could help you solve this zucchini
I get the Christy mystery. Yes, always, always, yes, If
you have any mysteries to send to us, we would
love to hear from you. Thanks to both of those
listeners for writing in. If you would like to write
to us that you can our emails Hello at savor
(56:15):
pod dot com. We're also on social media. You can
find us on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram at savor pod
and we do hope to hear from you. Savor is
production of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts from my
heart Radio, you can visit the I Heart Radio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Thanks as always to our super producers Dylan Fagan and
Andrew Howard. Thanks to you for listening and we hope
(56:37):
that lots more good things are coming your way.
Hello, and welcome to Savor Prediction of I Heart Radio.
I'm Any and I'm Lauren vocal Bam, and today we
have an episode for you about nutrition labels. Yes, which
was a suggestion from you, Lauren. Was there any particular
reason this was on your mind? Uh? This was this
was a listeners suggestion from way in the way back. Um.
(00:30):
And you know, sometimes I'll be going through our idea
spreadsheet and just going like I don't know, like, like
what what is in here that we just haven't thought
about in a minute, And this popped up? And forgive
me for whoever it was that suggested this a I
think it was in and be I did not put
(00:52):
your name in the notes. If it was you, thank you. Uh.
But yeah, this is something that's like never that far
from my mind because whenever I'm in a grocery store,
especially having like the kind of food sensitivities that I do, Um,
it's really important for me to annoyingly important for me
to read the nutrition labels of all of the products
(01:13):
that I'm buying, because you know, like people just love
putting bell peppers and stuff just all over the place.
And I don't know why people like it. Oh, here's
a safe dessert, Bell Pepper. I'm starting to feel like
it's personal. Um, that's the only logical explanation I think.
(01:37):
But but yeah, yeah, so um so so I'm always
looking at that kind of thing and um, and they
are a strange beasts, they really are. Um. And this
episode had so many papers written on it that were
really dense, fascinating, very very ins um and just bought
(02:03):
up things that I never considered of like, oh, yeah,
how did they arrive at that number? Sure? Um, yeah,
and there. I mean, I feel like this is going
to be this is like like a longer outline, like
like one of our longer outlines of late Um. And
it's kind of going to be a brief overview because
like we were, we were both saying before we started recording,
(02:25):
like there were a lot of rabbit holes that we
just chose not to go down because we were like, Nope,
that could be a different episode. Yeah. Yeah, and for sure,
like sometimes peek behind the curtains, I think it's probably
is true for most shobs, but sometimes the timing works
out very interestingly. So for this current week that we
were researching this for reasons, a lot of reasons I've
(02:47):
had to research at night, like late at night, and
so when you're trying to research like nutrition facts and
labels and math and percentages at three in the morning,
your brain reaches a point where you're like, you're not
you're not getting this. You're writing something down that you
(03:08):
don't understand. Step back. Yeah, you know that processing thing
that you usually do when you intake information. That's not
what you're doing right now, buddy. Yeah, this one was
more math heavy too, so it was like a confluence. Yeah,
for sure. Well, I'm I'm sorry for suggesting a difficult
(03:30):
one in the middle of your birthday week. It's Annie's
birthday week, y'all. Everybody wish her a happy birthday. I
just waved as if I can see all of you,
but thank you for your wishes happy birthday that I'm
going to assume that you gave me in response to that. No,
it was no problem. It was really interesting. It's it
was just funny that sometimes the timing works out that
(03:51):
way where, Yeah, I want to ask that you ever
play in elementary school game where you had you had
kind of like hand sized regular balls and that was
your fat, it represented fat, and then you had these
like small balls that were yellow and they represent cholesterol,
(04:14):
and you had your like little cube that was taped
onto the floor and you were trying to keep out
the fat and cholesterol. And then at the end you
got points tallied up for how much you had inside
of your little Um. The short answer is no. Um.
The long answers, that's bonkers. What the heck? Uh? Oh
(04:40):
my heck? And goodness the okay, all right, my dudes,
The little like nutrition science part of my brain is
angry about this on a deep number of levels. You
don't think my physical education class with representatives of different
(05:05):
sizes of balls and point numbers nutrition learning experience for me?
I um no, nope, all right, emphatic note I didn't
like it either. It was also very intense. It was
very stressing. Yeah that that just from a purely like
(05:27):
game standpoint, that sounds like a very stressful game. It
was very stress and also like I think that young
like depending on the age group, like elementary school, Lauren
definitely would have gotten mad about it and started like
like removing the balls by any means necessary, like mostly
pegging fellow classmates with them. So I'm not saying I'm
(05:52):
the fanos of elementary school games. But I kind of
sounds like what you're saying. I don't know. M mmm. Um. Also, yes,
you can see our episode we don on expiration dates,
which really interesting one. Also interestingly, our margarine episode and
(06:12):
I think our types of milk episode we touch on
some of this stuff we're gonna touch on in this one. Yeah. Yeah.
Also um, our sugar episodes um. And relatedly our miracle
berry episode. Yes, right, so weird, so weird, okay, um.
(06:34):
But um, I suppose this brings us to our question.
I love when you asked that with a question, But yes,
I think it does. Nutrition labels what are they? Well? Uh,
nutrition labels are disclosures UM that producers of some types
(06:58):
of food and drink products are required by their government
to post clearly on the packaging of each product that
they produce, UM, so that a potential customer can see
at a glance, uh, several things about that product, generally
including the ingredients, caloric content per serving, um, how many
servings the package contains, and the content of several macro
(07:21):
and micro nutrients um. In the United States, as of
right now, I'm pretty sure uh, these labels must include
calories total fat, saturated fat, trans fat, cholesterol, sodium, total carbohydrate,
dietary fiber, total sugars, added sugars, protein, vitamin D, calcium, iron,
(07:41):
and potassium. All of those macro and micronutrients are listed
in both the amount UM and the percentage of recommended
daily intake. That that amount represents UM and and the
percentage of recommended daily in cake is assuming that you
(08:02):
are an average healthy human person consuming approximately two thousand
calories per day UM, which many of us are not.
So that's hilarious anyway. Um. The labels also have to
state whether UM eight common allergens may be present, and
that's milk, egg shellfish, fish, tree nuts, wheat, peanuts, and soybeans. Um.
(08:24):
And also it has to list the name and the
address of the producer and there you go. UM. So,
I mean, you know that's that's like a long list
of stuff, but it seems like something that you know
that the creation and regulation of should be fairly straightforward,
right like like in these are modern times, there are
(08:46):
science ways to tell what kinds of molecules are in
a substance UM and in one amounts, and there are
whole databases of accepted amounts of these substances that different
food ingredients possess on average. So if you you know,
do that sans yourself, or look at those databases and
then combine the results of that with an honest list
of what all ingredients you used to make a product,
(09:08):
you know, like boom nutrition label. Right, No, of course not.
There are just all kinds of complications. It's it's complications
all the way down, um, at the very top level,
you know. It's it's it's like we say pretty much
(09:29):
every episode, you know, like like human bodies are complicated.
Nutrition is complicated, um, And humanity's knowledge of how the
human body works is changing constantly. So so even the
decision of what's pertinent to put on these labels is
changing constantly. And then there are any number of reasons
(09:49):
why producer might not want to disclose every little thing
about their product. Um. Some some are earnest, This recipe
is proprietary, and I don't want to tell the world
exactly what goes in to my spice blend for it,
because then someone might reproduce it and this is my business,
you know. Um. Some some reasons are a little tricksier,
you know, like maybe a producer is afraid that health
(10:12):
conscious consumers won't buy their product if they see how
much fat or sugar is in it, and rather than reformulate,
they would prefer to fudge the numbers a little. Um.
So the creation of these labels, from the regulation around
them to the compliance with those regulations is uh fraught
(10:32):
at worst, and honestly, at best, it's just it's just messy. Um.
Every government that requires these labels has a lot to
take into consideration and a lot of voices in their ears. Um.
When the system works well, you know, you as a
consumer can walk into a store and pick up a
product and feel confident that you know what's in it
(10:52):
and how it will fit into your diet. Um. But
how we go about trying to make that happen is
is a continual and strange process. Yeah. As ofen UM,
nutrition labels were mandatory in the United States, Canada, Mexico, Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Paraguay, Uruguay,
(11:15):
the European Union, Russia, Israel, the Gulf Cooperation Council, UM, Nigeria, India,
Hong Kong, China, Japan, South Korea, Malaysia, Taiwan, Thailand, the Philippines, Indonesia, Vietnam, Australia,
and New Zealand. And I know that that's like a
long list of countries, and I'm I felt weird about
including it, but then I felt weird about not including it.
(11:35):
I don't know, like so much of so much of
the information that we've got for y'all today is so
US centric that I was just like, now, just go
ahead and do this at the very least, um h. Yeah.
And and then so those are those are places where
Nutritian labeling is mandatory. Um. It is furthermore voluntary in
a bunch of other countries, and those are Venezuela, Turkey, Switzerland, Morocco, Lebanon, George, Singapore, Brunei,
(12:01):
me and mar Vietnam, Kenya, Mauritius, and South Africa. And yeah,
there are both national and international organizations um that that
study what different places are doing and how it's working
and how it might be improved. Yes, yes, and I
(12:21):
have a Seinfeld reference. Uh of course. Yeah. This this
episode is actually very strange because looking back, it feels
so odd. But there's a whole episode about like fat free,
the fat free yogurt talked about in Our Our yogurt episode. Okay, sure, sure, yeah,
(12:42):
we talk I think we talked about this episode then too.
There's a whole episode about that, and um, everybody in
this show is in heavy quotes gaining weight. Um because
they're eating this yogurt. They're like, it's not fat free.
It can't be. So they steal sample of the ogret
to go get it tested and then uh some something
(13:06):
else spills into it, so the test gets ruined. Anyway,
The weird part is Rudy Giuliani, isn't it. Yeah. Times
change in a lot of ways and don't change in others.
But it was a good like and it was like
(13:26):
how he won slash lost the election was the fighting
the frozen yogurt like accurately labeled, Uh so people knew
what they were getting. Interesting, fascinating. Yeah, But speaking of
what about the nutrition the nutrition of a nutrition label? Sure,
(13:49):
don't don't eat nutrition labels. They're not food. All right?
All right, have you ever had that moment where you're like,
because we were just talking about cheese, and I have
a lot of cheese for other various reasons most of
the bird, but the other day I was eating to
get like the piece of the rind and I'm like,
(14:12):
I'm not sure I'm supposed to eat this. This might
be paper. Yeah, yeah, I always. I frequently have that
question about cheese. Is I'm like, is this wax? Is
this cheese? Is this? What is? Well? When in doubt,
I just eat it when in doubt, Oh dear, that's
(14:33):
our lesser known motto. Well, we do have some numbers
for you. Yes, yes, we do. Yes. In when the
U s f d A, along with the Department of
Health and Human Services released the first Dietary Guidelines for
Americans with the intent of updating them every five years. UM.
(14:54):
When they first released them, there were seven guidelines and
two thous five they were forty one, so they are
constantly re evaluating and updating and adding stuff. Yeah, oh yes,
oh yes. Also, um, it does cost money for producers
to create nutrition labeling for their products. Um. And there
are all kinds of lab and database and consultation services
(15:16):
out there, but generally it seems like it costs in
current one United States dollars a little over a grand
to get the information you need about a product for
your label. And that's to say nothing of the cost
of actually getting those labels printed. And implemented. UM. And
of course, UM, every time that there's a change in
label regulation, as we're talking about happening constantly, you do
(15:40):
have to get new labeled data done and get that
label drawn up and change your packaging. UM. When the
FDA was looking into changing its labeling guidelines in a
big way in the ninety nineties, UM, it recognized that
the printing costs alone would cost the food industry some
seven and fifty six million dollars. Wow. Yeah, But it
(16:05):
was deemed important because like, nutrition is kind of a
big part of health. UM, and it's a big concern. UM.
Non communicable diseases, you know, like cancer, heart disease, diabetes,
stuff like that account for of human deaths globally. UM.
That's according to the World Health Organization. And poor diet
(16:27):
is a major risk factor of those. And according to
Tough Nutrition and Health Letter, people who consult nutrition labels
consume fewer calories and less total fat, saturated fat, cholesterol,
and added segars than non label users, But only sixty
one point six percent of those surveys said that they
regularly check the Nutrition Facts Panel. Usage of other label
(16:48):
resources was even lower, fifty one point six percent check
the ingredients list, forty seven point two percent look at
the serving size, and forty three point eight percent consider
health claims when pondering a food purchase. Huh yeah um,
and other studies have found upwards of people don't believe
health labeling on products. Yeah, but you know there we're
(17:13):
going to talk about some nefarious actors in the field
and practices and past. Sure. Yeah, yeah, I mean, you know,
it's I think I think moving moving forward with with
healthy skepticism is always good. But um, but gosh, yeah,
I I feel like I believe in them too much.
(17:34):
I'm like, this is science act. Clearly, no one whatever
lie about anything on a food package. How why what they?
How dare they? Yeah? In in that. In that same
research that the FDA was doing in the UM, they
were really trying to prove out the the like the
(17:54):
like cost benefit analysis of this whole thing UM, and
they determined that providing consumers with better nutrition information via
these labels would prevent one and seventy nine cancer cases,
four thousand and twenty four cases of cardiovascular disease, and
(18:15):
twelve thousand, nine hundred and two premature deaths over twenty years.
And they put a cash number on this, UM four
point two billion dollars in social benefits, worker productivity, healthcare savings,
all of that over the next twenty years UM. They
estimated in comparison UM that the cost of implementing these
(18:36):
labeling changes that they were proposing would be around two
point six billion dollars. So they were like, they were like,
forget about saving lives, because like, if all you're looking
at is the money, then I guess screw people. Um.
But but just in terms of money, you know, you're
you're saving like like at least a billion and a
(18:58):
half bucks by implementing these changes, and probably a lot
of people too, if you want to care about that
sort of if you care about yeah, wow, so big deal. Um. Obviously,
there's been a lot of research into the money aspect
(19:18):
and the life saving aspect and just the health overall
health aspect of that. I have found that really interesting
because I feel like, through this show, I've seen these
peaks and loads of people caring about health and not
caring so much, and so that does really impact what
it ends up on the label. Yeah, yeah, and right,
And I mean I don't know, like it's there. There's
(19:39):
so much I feel like there's a really huge gap
and assumption between like the fact that you put a
label out there and right like like you were saying
like this, this tough research was saying, um that that
someone's going to take that to heart and use it
in an appropriate way. Um. But but they've researched it
more than I have. They certainly have, UM. And I
(20:03):
was kind of reminded a couple of years ago. I
used to be somebody would bake a lot of stuff
and bringing them into the office back in the day,
and I would make a lot of healthy stuff. And
I remember once I made these they were really good,
delicious muffins, and they were, you know, really healthy and
low calory. And one of our coworkers was like, I
don't trust anything like this because I don't trust what's
(20:25):
in it. And I was like, well, I made it,
um even so, and she was like, no, but it
just doesn't make sense, like what is in it. I
was like, this thing and this thing and this thing,
here's the recipe. So that's just an interesting aspect to
you of of human nature, to me of like this,
(20:46):
always we have our experiences and assumptions that we operate
off of um, and that's what this nutrition label is
having to grapple with, is all of that, the company
side and the government side, in the human nature side.
It isn't. It is an interesting puzzle and it has
(21:06):
it is one that we have been coping with for
her for a hot minute. Yes, and speaking of a
hot minute, we do have a hot bit of history
for you. We do, and we will get into that
as soon as we get back from a quick break
for a word from our sponsor, and we're back, Thank
(21:32):
you sponsored, Yes, thank you. So, as we said, a
lot of what we're going to be talking about is
based in the United States. Um, that we're going to
touch on other countries and that information is absolutely out there.
So that being said, international listeners, as always, I would
love to hear from you, oh yeah, yeah, yeah, and
if um, if, if you know, off the top of
(21:53):
your head of a particularly interesting story, we would be
happy to do a whole episode. But yeah, like like
that's this would have been a much there's you guys.
There's a lot of governments out there, as it turns out, Yeah,
but a lot, a lot a lot of them looking
into this whole nutrition puzzle piece and how to communicate
that effectively to the public. So yeah, it's a lot
(22:17):
um alright. So nutrition labels in the US really got
started around the nineteen sixties. Certain foods that the Food
and Drug Administration are the f t A labeled as
for quote special dietary uses, meaning foods that could be
used to meet knees caused by physical, pathological, or similar conditions. Um.
Those foods have labels detailing their sodium and or calories
(22:41):
on them um. From nineteen forty one to about nineteen
sixty one. There were several reasons at play when it
came to the lack of labeling. One reason was that
most people were cooking at home with pretty simple ingredients.
The other related reason was this was before food processing,
so people weren't really questioning what was in their food.
(23:03):
That coworker at our office like, what isn't here? Yeah
I made it? Yeah yeah. I mean you know, for
for for most of human history, um, the food production
happened in in homes or in shops, um and so
uh and and and locally and so you know, you
weren't before the Industrial Revolution, it wasn't really a question rights, right. Um.
(23:29):
That being said, there were labels even earlier than this,
going back to some food born outbreaks in the eighteen
fifties in the U s including the high profile death
of US President Zachary Taylor, who was believed to have
died at her eating some bad fruit and drinking some
bad milk. President Lincoln created the U s d A
in eighteen sixty two in response, and the USDA crafted
(23:52):
some strict guidelines on food processing and handling. And I
think that's another theme, like we're not going to go
through that as much, but I kept thinking king of
like the Jungle Sinclair's The Jungle. There these big moments
in history where people like, wait, what is this? Oh
yeah yeah yeah, and and we and we We've talked
about that in a bunch of different episodes. Um catch
(24:12):
up was a big one. Stuff like that. Yeah yeah
yeah um. Others. Other researchers have pointed out that due
to miss labeling around bread weight, food labeling technically goes
back even further like the Middle Ages, but that was
much more you know, this is how much this piece
of bread? Weys sure sure? Or or you know, like
(24:35):
like various other things like um like like we talked
about in our Cheddar episode. Um uh you know, like
how much how much milk fat would have been going
into different products like that. So yeah, yeah, cheese is
a good one to bring up in this conversation. Yes,
lots of scandals with the cheese. In six the First
(24:57):
Food and Drugs Act past, illegalizing interstate sales of miss
branded and or adulterated foods, drinks, and drugs, and in
the U Supreme Court took it a step further, decrying
any misleading or deceptive info provided by a company about
a food product, even if true, was illegal, So even
if it was just kind of like I guess, yeah, misleading. Yeah.
(25:23):
Then of course there was the Oleo Margarine Act, enacted
in nineteen fifty to distinguish colored margarine from butter yes,
and then in the Food Additives Amendment required manufacturers to
name all the additives in their product um And then
that same year, the FDA released their guidelines around foods
(25:43):
generally recognized as safe our grass g r A s,
which we've also talked about quite I think stepping back
a bit, and also future episode because I'm really fascinated
with this now. The first vitamin was isolated in nine. Yeah. Yeah,
the entire discussion around macro and micro nutrients, um and
(26:04):
I and I kind of covered that earlier, but but
just in case anyone is confused by those terms, um
uh no shame in it. Uh. Macronutrients are things like
protein and fat and carbohydrate that are the the the
big components of our diets. And then the micronutrients are
the vitamins and minerals and stuff like that. So uh
yeah yeah, um for yeah, for most of human history,
(26:25):
we didn't know how all that worked. We were just like, well,
we feel full when we eat this meat, and we
you know, dialusue when we eat vegetables, um scurvy. Yeah. Yeah,
but but but right we we didn't start knowing what
those molecules are and what they're doing, or or compounds
are and what they're doing, um until basically the nineteen hundreds. Yeah,
(26:52):
which is wild to think about anyway, I know. Um Okay,
So all of this of you know, kind of minimal
wabeling in the US changed course in the fifties and sixties.
When processed food entered the mainstream American diet, people understandably
(27:12):
were a little concerned and perhaps just curious what was
in their food and kept requesting for this information. And
because of all this, the nineteen sixty nine White House
Conference on Food, Nutrition and Health received a recommendation suggesting
that they come up with a way to quantify and
communicate the nutritional qualities of food products. And here's a
(27:33):
quote from that conference. Every manufacturer should be encouraged to
provide truthful nutritional information about his products to enable consumers
to follow recommended dietary regiments. The FDA took this suggestion
to heart and got to work on it right away.
They consulted prominent figures in the food industry, producers and nutritionists.
They tested out a few labels. In nineteen seventy two,
(27:56):
the FDA released a proposed format for nutrition labels on
packaged foods. These labels were optional outside of foods that
made some level of nutritional claim in any way, whether
that was in the labeling or in the advertising. They
implemented this as an extension of the Food, Drug and
Cosmetic Act that determined that a food was not branded
(28:17):
correctly if it quote fails to reveal facts material in
the light of such representation. Okay, okay, so yes. These
regulations went to effect in nineteen seventy three. They required
that The label included information on the calorie, protein, and
carbohydrates UM, all contents of all those, along with the
recommended daily percentages of vitamins A and C, calcium, thiamin, riboflavin, niacin, iron,
(28:43):
and proteins. The manufacturer could also include info on the
saturated fats, polyunsaturated fatty acids, and sodium if they so desired.
These numbers were to be calculated based on an average
serving size UM. All of these numbers were based on
the Recommended Dietary Allowance the rd A, calculated by the
(29:03):
National Academy of Sciences UH. The numbers were, for the
most part, the highest value for any given r d
A nutrient for men and women who weren't pregnant or lactating.
And yes, I did try to. This is where my
brain was like, stop it, you're not understanding this. I
think you're communicating what they did. But yes, I was interested.
(29:28):
Oh how I've never thought about that? How did they
arrive at these numbers? Oh? Sure, yeah, the whole process. Yes, UM.
The U s d AS Food Safety and Inspection Service
provided similar numbers for meat and poultry was sort of
separately regulated. UM. Despite this, a lot of companies were
out there making false claims, and a case reached the
(29:51):
Supreme Court in ninety three, the court ruled that nutrition
labels had to be included on all foods that we're
making any type of health claim in. The Federal Trade Commission,
along with the f d A and U s d A,
conducted hearings on problems and possible improvements of these nutrition labels,
and they called for them to be made mandatory. Yeah.
(30:13):
Across the nineteen seventies, there was a lot of concern
and activism from various communities about all of this. UM.
Consumer advocate groups like the Center for Science and the
Public Interest started really pushing for like more better labeling information, UM,
including for a type of product that we haven't mentioned yet,
alcohol and more on that in a minute. Yes. Moving
(30:36):
into the nineteen eighties, interest in health and nutrition was rising,
partly in thanks to the National Research Council's paper Diet
and Health Implications for Reducing Chronic Disease Risk, and also
the Surgeon General's Report on Nutrition and Health. These papers
really recommended things like cutting back on fat and were
instrumental in forming these ideas around health in America. Yeah,
(31:00):
and and right, like Uh, like we said earlier, Um,
we do talk about this kind of era a lot
in our Sugar and Miracle Berry episodes. Um, so see
those for a little more on that there. In short,
there there were a lot of people, a lot of
science humans doing a lot of really good work, and
also a lot of influence from the sugar industry and
other lobbies. Yes, mucking everything up tremendously. So yes, yes indeed.
(31:25):
Oh and also, as we mentioned in our serial episode
in Kellogg's, in conjunction with the National Cancer Institute, started
a campaign of using the back label to to out
the link between fiber consumption and too possible loweral rates
of certain types of cancer. And when the FDA didn't
come after them, other companies started doing similar things. So
(31:46):
this really opened the door for a lot of the
you know, like the little box claims you might see
us on I I often do think of cereals or
breakfast products in particular. Yeah, yeah, they're like this has fiber,
you won't get cancer. Go um and write. Yes, it's
a very specific and narrow claim that again might technically
(32:09):
not be untrue, but might be a little bit misleading,
yes for sure. Um okay, but even At this time,
there still wasn't any like really standardized nutrition label in
Dr Lewis W. Sullivan, who was the Secretary of the U.
S Department of Health and Human Services at the time,
(32:30):
called on the FDA to revise the food label UM,
and on a separate occasion said, as consumers shop for
healthier food, they encounter confusion and frustration. The grocery store
has become a tower of babel and consumers need to
be linguists, scientists and mind readers to understand the many
labels that they see appreciated Yeah, I'm like a O
(32:53):
snap and be uh yeah, absolutely huh. A period of
public comment was opened across the country, and as scientific advancements,
new dietary recommendations, individual states where they were getting in
on this food safety game, and all this labeling happening
um within the manufacturing realm. All of this influenced this
(33:14):
push for a new, clearer, standardized nutrition label. The U. S.
D A signed the Nutrition Labeling and Education Act, which
was an amendment of the Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic
Act into law, and and this decree that all companies
had to keep claims about their products consistent and include
(33:36):
detailed and standardized nutrition information on anything they were intending
to sell. So that's really recent. I was surprised. Yeah,
I don't think I realized that this happened during my lifetime.
Me either, me either. And it's still changing changing. Oh yes.
(33:57):
So with this act, r d as were replaced with
reference Daily Intakes are r D eyes, and guidelines around
serving sizes were given. That's one area where I kind
of chuckled, and it has it's changed a lot. Officials
looked to those two reports that I mentioned earlier to
figure out what vitamins and minerals to include on these labels.
(34:18):
Um Some like total sugars were voluntary unless the product
made some kind of claim about sugar content. The legislation
also called for standardized definitions to be developed and used
so that we were all on the same page when
it came to whatever terminology was being implemented. US Nutrition
Facts labels debuted in it covered a majority of food
(34:43):
products other than alcohol and meat and poultry, which were
meat and poultry were under the jurisdiction of different departments,
so the FDA worked with f S I S to
get the meat and poultry industry on boards. So they
even though they were under different jurisdictions, they did kind
of follow the same path. Yeah um. And there were
a few other exceptions like baby formula, which already had
(35:05):
its own set of rules, and yes, serving sizes or
reference amounts customarily consumed or are a CC were updated
in and okay so um so uh, meat and poultry
a few other exceptions, and then alcohol alcohol also being
under a different jurisdiction. Um, so okay. Brief aside here,
(35:29):
Um that the reason that alcohol does not have to
carry nutrition labels in the United States, despite contributing to
an average of four hundred calories a day to American
diets by some estimates, Um, the reason is prohibition and
tax law. M'm not surprised. Yeah yeah, so okay um um.
(35:51):
After the repeal of prohibition, um, the government was kind
of going like, all right, how can we at least
make some money off of this thing that we've been
railing again that we've finally allowed people to sell and
buy again. Um so um. They passed the Alcohol Administration Act,
which created this new governing body that would eventually become
(36:12):
the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau um or
the t TB for short, and this, uh, this, this
placed control of how alcohol is marketed and sold UM
outside of the FDA's hands by the time the FDA
became a thing. Um. For the most part, there are
some exceptions, because of course there are UM like wines
(36:33):
that contain less than seven percent alcohol UM and beers
that don't contain multi barley those are under FDA regulations. Anyway,
I again, this could be a whole separate episode, and
I'm fascinated by it, so hopefully it will be in
the future. Um. But yeah so um. So. A few
alcohol labeling regulations were happening vaguely in parallel to everything
(36:56):
that was going on with the f D, a UM
and nutrition labels over the years. But I think it's
safe to say that the alcohol industry was largely just
pleased as punch to not have to mess with any
of that, and a number of related lobbies and brands
did put pressure on the government to avoid pushes for
(37:16):
nutrition labeling on alcohol. It's funny how it kind of
backfired for the government, Like all these groups that were like,
oh no, yeah, yeah, it's it's it's a it's a
complicated and fascinating I've got like one more note about it.
But anyway, um uh, continuing with with things that do
have these nutrition labels. Yes, American Heart Association Loss of
(37:41):
certification program that in part included the Heart Check label
on food products, and I imagine a lot of a
lot of you are familiar with that. To get this certification,
the product in question has to be low and cholesterol
and saturated fat and the manufacturer has to make a
payment to the ah AS if you can't afford it.
Co branded kind of thing. Sure. The Farm Bill of
(38:05):
two thousand two required that all fresh meat, poultry, pork,
and lamb come with a country of origin label, and
that one to effect in two thousand nine. But it
was rifles loopholes, and I feel like we've been talking
about that a lot too when we talk about like, uh,
mislabeled seafood or or there's just a lot of instances
of this still being a problem. Yeah, yeah, And I
(38:26):
believe I believe that this was partially influenced by UM
the sponge form and scephalitis mad cow um issues of
that era UM, which we talked about in our Sweetbreads episode.
Mm hmm, yep, wow, this one's I mean, I guess
nutrition does such on all kinds of things, so transpats
(38:49):
were required to be a part of labeling beginning in
two thousand three here in the United States. Also in
two thousand three, the FDA shifted their rules so that
companies no longer had to make health claims based on
quote significant scientific consensus, but now could make them based
on quote some scientific evidence or very limited and preliminary
scientific research. Um. Soon after, in two thousand four, companies
(39:14):
started denoting their healthier products with their own labeling. Again,
I believe we're all very familiar with this. Over the
next decade, similar things happened, with grocery stores and companies
finding new ways to draw attention to healthier options. In
two thousand nine, the FDA sent a letter to Smart Choices,
which is that green check on products. Yeah. Um, And
(39:38):
the FDA was like, stop please, you're confusing people. Stop it. Um.
And it worked, I guess, because only a week later
the programs suspended itself. Well that's that's delightful. I mean, yeah, yeah,
no, no no, no, that that was that was an era.
Yeah no, I guess I had never thought about it.
But um, But the early two thousand's really were a
(40:00):
time when a lot of labeling was coming out that
was very like by this it's healthy. Yeah, and it
wasn't for a few years until like that started getting
shut down. Yeah. And I was thinking about, you know,
when I was a kid, because a lot of this
stuff that I'm thinking of his marketed torch children, and
it would have like the box tops and so you
(40:22):
would get like a monetary, you know, kick back of
eating this thing. And it's also being touted as healthy.
So okay, yeah, it's just kind of predatory in a way,
I guess. Oh absolutely telling parents or guardians this is
(40:42):
good for your kids, and then also you get money
for your school or whatever if you sure. Yeah yeah.
And then right, and then like all kinds of parallel
issues like like use of words like a like natural
that don't that it's not that they mean nothing, it's
just that they don't mean what you think they mean.
Like right, um, and again a whole other, whole other
(41:04):
episode um uh in um. The aforementioned Alcohol and Tobacco
Tax and Trade Bureau made nutrition labels for alcohol optional.
And this is when we started seeing like like you know,
all of those like light beers marketing. They're low calorie counts,
(41:27):
like oh yeah, ultra like only like sixty calories bottle
or sixty carbs or what that's sixty carbs isn't a thing?
Um like like however much whatever that they feel like
saying to you as though it means something. Um, I mean,
and it does. I'm sorry I'm being snarky. Um but yeah.
So so these these rules state that you do not
have to include a nutrition label on your product, on
(41:50):
your alcoholic product, but if you do, you have to
include account of the total calories, carbs, proteins, and fats. However,
you still do not have to list ingredients, um, other
than a few specific substances um that are deemed to
be potentially hazardous like um self fights and certain food dies. Um. So,
so that is the current state of affairs for alcohol
(42:14):
nutrition labeling. That's interesting because I do feel like there's
been I have seen a lot more of that marketing
lately of like there's even uh athletic beer. Yeah, that's
interesting that they're kind of riding this line in between
(42:35):
of only having to provide certain information. Yeah, and that's
that's kind of like like part of what the pushback
against including nutrition labels on these products at all was
for for for decades, because some detractors were going like, well,
they're just going to market it as a health food
if you let them, so, don't don't let them include
(42:57):
any information on it. Um But I don't know. Yeah,
it's it's an interesting problem um food wise though. Um Uh.
Similar nutrition labels to what we've had here in the
US since four only became mandatory across the the European
Union as a whole in um and and those are
(43:18):
a little bit different. Um I think my my, my
data is from twenty five team, so it could very
well have changed since then. Um but uh, I think
that they list all of their nutritional information per a
hundred grams or milli leters of product, not by whatever
arbitrary serving size, um, which has its pros and cons
um And there are a few other differences, like uh,
(43:41):
we list sodium here, they list salt, which are related
but different. Um Uh. There's a rule over there about
um if you list vegetable oil, you have to list
specifically what type. I'm not sure if we've implemented that
here or not. Um Uh. They use codes for common
food additives versus the common names which are mandatory here.
(44:05):
Um So yeah, um, anyone, anyone who's who's familiar, please
right in. I didn't happen to have a labeled food
product from that part of the world in my kitchen
to double check for um uh and then um uh.
All y'all might remember some of the headlines about this
(44:28):
coming out. The FDA changed their labels again, UM, adding
a line for added sugars in grants UM and UH
the percentage of daily recommended in take that that accounts
for UM. The new labels also emphasize serving size by
putting it in bold face, bold type face and giving
it a larger font size. UM. The new labels make
(44:48):
the calories per serving the by far most prominent line
on the label, and they also remove UM. This this
line that the labels previously had for calories from fat. UM.
This used to be on the same line as the
total calories and so it was really drawing attention two
calories from fat and the influence of fat in in
(45:09):
a product. UM. Now fat is just listed along with
the other macronutrients, which I think is great. I think
is a much more honest and straightforward way of going
about things. Yeah, yeah, I mean again, that goes back
to kind of the shifting conversation around health and what
it's been what's bad for us in this country because
I remember when it like all of a sudden, we
(45:30):
were like, wait, sugar, I shouldn't be having fisty grams
of sugar and this one's boonfull looked how much sugar?
Too much sugar. It was just a huge conversation Oh sure, sure, well,
I mean it kind of still is, so, you know, right,
because like all of this is ongoing. UM. There are
all kinds of issues and potential solutions being debated and
(45:53):
implemented to help consumers make more informed choices. UM. One
of the big ones right now is front of package
lay ling UM. And this is something that you can
see in UM in packaged foods. If you find like
like a candy bar from the UK or something, UM,
it's going to have right on the front of the
label like like like calorie count, fat count, stuff like that. UM.
(46:15):
And uh that's that is especially for categories of food
like that like snacks and candies. Another thing being discussed
in a lot of places is UM color coating, like
along the lines of like like like red, yellow, green,
like traffic light style color coding. UM to give a consumer,
even one who who isn't literate, um, and at a
(46:35):
glance rating of like the healthiness of a food or
a menu item um, I mean also menus in general,
like like where and when a food menu has to
include nutrition information or voluntarily includes it. Fascinating stuff it
is it is, and I can I can only imagine
(46:57):
it's I I legitimate, I know it keeps saying this,
but I really am intrigued by human nature because I
feel like, you know, food producers manufacturers fight so hard
for like the green red like whatever, you wouldn't want
your product to be in the red. But then I
feel like there are plenty of people who are like,
give me that junk food. Yeah, I don't care. It's delicious,
(47:20):
are you Yeah, Like it's a fried potato. I'm going
to eat it right now, like you know, and well
and and and also like, oh, I don't know, Like
I'm I'm of a lot of minds about this because
like a thing that we try really hard to do
with this show is to emphasize that like treats are okay,
and that like and that like human diet is super
(47:43):
again super complex, and that you know, there's no one
way that that bodies deal with food, and there's no
one way that you should feel pressured to eat or
to look for hex hecking heck um you know and
and so um, I don't know, it's it's it's just
very There is just so much more research needs to
(48:06):
be done. Yes, our research is needed. I do believe
in informed that's good. Um. But yeah, I think so
much of it we have been misled about how how
our diet should look or what is good and what
is bad. Um. So it is complicated because I'm like, yes,
(48:29):
I want the label, but do I really understand what
this labeled means? Yeah, and and and furthermore, like stop
like like I don't know, like like it can be
a little bit condescending sometimes, like I feel like most
of us know that potato chips aren't the most nutrients
only sounds choice like that's understood. M hum. But I
mean like like yeah, like like sometimes you just want
(48:51):
to eat a heck of potato chip, leave me alone.
That's a good point too. We have enough of that
nonsense guilt food already. Hm hm oh. This is this
is the type of stuff my brain likes to dig into.
I get mad, But I'm also like, oh yeah, so
many different angles nutrition labels. Yeah, yes, yes, well clearly
(49:17):
we'll probably be coming back to discuss more of these
issues we touched on at a later date. Yes, yes,
that is about what we have to say about it today. Um,
we do have some listener mail for you. We do,
but first we have one more group break for word
from our sponsor, and we're back. Thank you sponsoring, Yes,
(49:41):
thank you, and we're back with more people. I wasn't
following you on that one at all. That's it's because
I got distracted halfway. I wanted to do like I
was going to be like a straight read, and then
(50:01):
I was like, it will never work, but it could
be hilarious if I just was like listening mail. And
then I was like, what if I did like a
robot thing? And then I realized that I don't know
how to communicate robot voice very well the robot. Yeah. Yeah, anyway,
well that's what happened. It went in a number of
(50:22):
different places. I think we ended on some peeps and
boots and so that was not not robotic. Um my
favorite SpongeBob episode. Are you SpongeBob listeners? You know what
I'm talking about um. Allison wrote insert longtime listener, first
(50:45):
time caller here. My fame is Allison and I've been
a listeners since the food stuff days. Thank you for
the educational entertainment. I enjoy listening while I work securely
cleaning houses, doing my own chores, and on the occasional run.
There have been many times I've can stitted writing in,
but never expected the Aqua Faba episode to be the
one full disclosure. I didn't have a clue about what
(51:06):
aqua Faba was. Now I know, and it was really interesting.
But what prompted me to send this email was when
you said that chickpeas are also known as garbonzo beans.
I never knew this, so my mind was blown. But
more importantly, hearing the word garbonzo made me realize I
could write in and share that we have pet ducks
that are all food names. When you've asked for pets
(51:30):
of food names in the past, I've always thought of
your typical dogs, cats, hamsters, et cetera. It all started
when we got our first paddling of ducks last year.
Two of them we called Popcorn and butter Fast or
to late winner this year, and we had a terrible
fox attack. Everyone was gone except Butter, who was badly injured.
(51:51):
We tried nursing her to health and adopted another duck
so she wouldn't be alone. We named the new duck
black Bean because she had beautiful black and iridescent feathers. Unfortunately,
Butter didn't make it, but we had black Bean to
comfort as. We got six new ducklings this spring and
decided to name them all after beans. I will attach
(52:11):
a photo identifying them all. The ladies are jelly Bean,
Cocoa Bean, Coffee Bean, Vanilla Bean, and baby black Bean.
And our drake slash Mail is wait for it, Garbanzo Bean.
I think I literally gassed when you said Garvanzo on
the episode, and I knew I had just share with
you all. We love our little duck family. Oh my goodness,
(52:34):
so adorable, the pictures so cute, the names are so good.
Oh I love it. I love a duckling. Yes, I'm good.
My heart feels so warm and full speaking about it. Oh,
I'm so sorry about your duckling disaster, but I'm so
so glad that you have some some some new buddies. Yes,
(52:57):
Um and Alison also from Vermont and built up on
another previous listener mail, we read about coming to Vermont
with even more suggestions. So now we've got food and
ducks to Vermont, so too, excellent excellent lures. Yeah uh,
(53:20):
Megan wrote, I just listened to the zucchini episode and
it answered a question I've had for years. I spent
a couple of years reading all of the Agatha Christie mysteries,
and in one Poirot retires to the country to grow
vegetable morrows or marrows. I'm not sure I never knew
what they were, but thanks to you, now I know
he was growing zucchini. If I recall correctly. He was
(53:41):
not very successful, probably because the plants weren't symmetric enough
for him. I also really appreciate Laurence zutles complaint. The
way food is named and discussed shapes so much of
our expectations and experience with it. In my case, I
want Cincinnati style chili to get rebranded as a meat sauce.
It has so much more in common with the ball
NAIs than a chili, and I imagine a meat sauce
(54:02):
with cinnamon would create less disgust than chili with cinnamon.
So people who are being introduced to it would have
less objections to it being weird. Oh that's interesting, Yeah,
because I totally forgot that brought back my memories of
our when we learned that in the Midwest, in some
(54:23):
places people eat cinnamon rolls with chili, right yeah, yeah,
well well I I always put cinnamon in my chili.
Um uh, cinnamon and cocoa powder are two of my
like little like like like secret ingredient kind of kind
of thing when you're sharing it with us. They're not
really secret there. I don't really have bad at secrets.
(54:45):
Um I just no one tell anyone our savor secret.
You're safe. Here is a safe uh so, so it's
a really but but but I can see where people
would I think that it sounds strange because yeah, but
but yeah, but then there's a whole sentiment roles thing.
(55:05):
So I don't know. I'm still determined to try that,
I think, I mean, and it goes back to so
much what we've been talking about in this episode or
when we're talking about like zoods, and yeah, it does
really impact. It's really your personal experiences and thoughts around
what something is. Um So, I think I believe you
(55:28):
Megan that maybe if you rebranded it as a meat sauce.
For some people, yeah, that would be much easier sell.
That would be so like, yeah, just get it out
of your head that it's chili. It's something different. Um
and yeah. But for other people, they're like, why is
there no cinnamon in my chili? So people are complicated. Yeah, yeah,
(55:52):
all of our relationships with food are very complicated. It's true.
I am glad we could help you solve this zucchini
I get the Christy mystery. Yes, always, always, yes, If
you have any mysteries to send to us, we would
love to hear from you. Thanks to both of those
listeners for writing in. If you would like to write
to us that you can our emails Hello at savor
(56:15):
pod dot com. We're also on social media. You can
find us on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram at savor pod
and we do hope to hear from you. Savor is
production of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts from my
heart Radio, you can visit the I Heart Radio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Thanks as always to our super producers Dylan Fagan and
Andrew Howard. Thanks to you for listening and we hope
(56:37):
that lots more good things are coming your way.
Savor News
Hosts And Creators
Anney Reese
Lauren Vogelbaum
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.
The Joe Rogan Experience
The official podcast of comedian Joe Rogan.