Proposed Food Label Changes
In 2014, the agency announced that it was updating the Nutrition Facts Panel. The original Nutrition Facts Panel is compared with the proposed revised Nutrition Facts Panel in Figure 6.1. The FDA issued a notice of the proposed changes and sought public comments. The FDA received almost 8,000 comments, all of which the agency is tasked with reviewing.[1]
The FDA’s major proposed changes in 2014 are reviewed in Box 6.1. It is important to note that the NLEA requires that serving size information be based on Reference Amounts Customarily Consumed (RACCs).[2] As such, the FDA defines “serving” and “serving size” as an amount of food customarily consumed per eating occasion.[3] The FDA established two sets of RACCs, one for children younger than four years of age, and one for persons four years and older.[4] These amounts were based on surveys of food consumption conducted in 1977-1978 and 1987-1988. Because consumers of all ages eat larger portions of food now than at the time of these surveys, the FDA is proposing to update the RACCs, and thus, the serving sizes on nutrition labels, to reflect current consumption patterns. In 2015, the FDA added a proposal to include the percent daily value for added sugars on the Nutrition Facts Panel.
