© 2025. The Trustees of Indiana University
Copyright Complaints
1229 East Seventh Street, Bloomington, Indiana 47405
News, Arts and Culture from WFIU Public Radio and WTIU Public Television
Give Now
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations
Federal funding for public media has been eliminated — we need your help to continue serving south central Indiana
Some web content from Indiana Public Media is unavailable during our transition to a new web publishing platform. We apologize for the inconvenience.
Earth Eats

Fooducate: 10 Things the FDA Can Do to Improve Nutrition Labeling

By Emily Shelton
Published October 29, 2019 at 2:09 PM EDT

As you may know, last week the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced that it's going to start regulating the front of package food-labels. As a result, "Smart Choices" decided to no longer take up residence on the front of packages. A smart choice, no? Broo-ha-ha.

Now that the FDA is taking a stand and fighting for the people, what exactly are their regulations going to be? And what other steps can they take to ensure that customers are knowledgeable of the food they're eating. Nutrition labels aren't exactly up-front as it is. As Fooducate puts it:

Wouldn't it be nice if the FDA cleaned up the mess originally created when the Nutrition Labeling and Education Act (NLEA) brought us the nutrition facts label as we know it today?

Well, according to Fooducate, here are 10 things the FDA can do to improve the existing information on labels:

  1. Enforce a realistic serving size

  2. Supply information on acceptable sugar amounts

  3. Tell how much ADDED sugar is in the food

  4. Zero grams of fat should=zero grams of fat

  5. No more qualified health claims

  6. State caffeine content

  7. Supply thorough allergy and intolerance information

  8. Allow rBGH-free labels

  9. Label the Booz

  10. Front of Packaging Labels- supply both negative and positives

    11. Earth Eats
    Stay Connected