This was a really, really good article. It was a bit long, but it is very useful to us. However, I'm not quite sure that it will make much of a difference, despite the cost. I mean, it really is important, but if they have to adjust the serving size by so much, it may just be that Americans won't pay attention as they guzzle down the sugary foods in their enlarged portions. Yet, I'm not really sure that what they say is completely accurate. For example, they say that a portion size of coke is 20 ounces. This is 8 ounces larger than your regular coke can, and most people will only drink a can per day (that's still a lot). What they say is true, though. We have a serious obesity problem with more than one third of our population overweight. It is good to raise awareness, but it seems like a lot of money to spend on something that might not even work. I, personally, think that they could find a better and more efficient way of handling this. Yes, I think it will be very controversial. I'm sure that companies don't want their products being advertised with all the pure sugar that is in them. As I was studying the differences, I wasn't sure if it was a whole lot easier to read, but making the calories bigger should be extremely useful. I noticed they removed calories from fat, and I wondered why. Calories from fat are basically the amount of calories from the fat in your food. A healthy diet should have about 10 to 30 percent calories in fat. I'm not quite sure why they're cutting it out. Maybe they figure it isn't important where the calories are coming from; just know that some of them are from fat. They also mentioned that sugar from fruit and added sugar were important to be mentioned, so I researched the difference. Sugar naturally from fruit is healthier, I think. A website I visited said that other healthier properties of the fruits helped you digest the sugar slower and made it not as harmful. In the end, I really enjoyed reading this article and think that it will end up being really useful.
I thought that this article was really interesting. However, I agree with Angela that some parts might not be extremely useful. For example, I don't think it matters that much about which side the daily values go on. However, there are some parts that I thought were good. For example, the added sugar part was good. I actually had a few questions, also. Why would the vitamin A and C be more prominent and the vitamin D and potassium be less? To understand better, I looked up more about the vitamins. Vitamin A is in fish and meat, so I'm guessing that you wouldn't need those counts because Americans eat a lot of meat. That would make sense because if we already have enough, we wouldn't need to worry about needing to get MORE. For vitamin C, it seems like many fruits carry it. That makes sense also because many people like to eat fruit. Therefore, with the same theory as I had for vitamin A, I think they don't need to put that count because we already have enough vitamin C. However, I still have to find out about vitamin D. A website said that it comes from fish like salmon and tuna, which are both fairly popular. You can also get it from the sun, which is almost always around. So, I'm not sure why the vitamin D count needs to be so prominent. If anyone finds out, can you post it? I don't understand prominent potassium counts much either. My best guess is from a website that said that people with kidney problems shouldn't eat too much potassium. The potassium counts can help those people decide whether there is too much potassium in there. However, though I think I understand why vitamins A and C can be erased, I'm still not sure why vitamin D and potassium counts are required. In conclusion, I feel like if people actually attempted to read the old nutrition labels, the majority of population would understand it. As the article mentioned, the problem is that most people don't even read calorie counts.
I really think that improving food labeling is important. Improved food labeling will help people who care about what they eat make better decisions about the food they eat. Making the portion size and quantity realistically would give people a more realistic idea of the calories they are eating. Looking at one of the brands of croutons I have at home, the serving size is 2 tablespoons. Looking at croutons from both brands a single croutons was larger than a tablespoon. So I guess the serving size was one crouton cut in half, but who eats just one crouton on their salad. This is just one example poor labeling because 2 tablespoons means that we would have to powder our croutons. Getting the portion size correct will help people find the nutritional information they are looking for. Maybe only a small proportion of people read the labels now, but if the information is easy to find and the proportion size is relevant to how people consume the food than I think more people will start to read the labels. When people start to read the labels more, then the government will hopefully demand that the manufacturers improve the nutritional content.
This was a very good article. I am one of the few people who actually study the nutrition labels, so I should know. I have found that first of all, in order to actually tell what they put in there you need a degree in nutrition, second of all, they really try to rip us off by tweaking their serving sizes (Most people will look at the calories per serving, and if it looks alright, then EAT!), and third, the average snack is really unhealthy. Every piece of meat was an animal fed antibiotics, every snack has tons of fat, and don't even get me started on soda. America is the second most "obese" country in the world, tailing behind Mexico. People used to eat a lot less than people did 20 years ago, and now that the average American has a huge diet they usually can't read a nutrition label and just look at the calories per serving. Unfortunately, there's been a large waste of fat stacks of cash trying to raise obesity awareness when I don't think most people care. Apparently, losing weight and gaining wait (dining) are both big business today. I think that if somebody really wanted to lose weight, they would really start to eat healthy foods, but I believe most people just don't care, and that's why America is so obese. If the FDA, health companies, and the government really wanted people to lose wait, then they would make it illegal to have a certain amount of fat, calories, etc in a snack. Back on topic, I think that the nutrition label is really unfair. The average American man or woman should be able to walk into a store, pick something off a shelf, read the nutrition label and be able to tell if it's good for their family or not. But no, nutrition labels seem to be written in a foreign language, and try to hide the important information as much as possible. But that's just my theory. If people want to lose weight, then they should probably take some drastic measures.
4 comments:
This was a really, really good article. It was a bit long, but it is very useful to us. However, I'm not quite sure that it will make much of a difference, despite the cost. I mean, it really is important, but if they have to adjust the serving size by so much, it may just be that Americans won't pay attention as they guzzle down the sugary foods in their enlarged portions. Yet, I'm not really sure that what they say is completely accurate. For example, they say that a portion size of coke is 20 ounces. This is 8 ounces larger than your regular coke can, and most people will only drink a can per day (that's still a lot). What they say is true, though. We have a serious obesity problem with more than one third of our population overweight. It is good to raise awareness, but it seems like a lot of money to spend on something that might not even work. I, personally, think that they could find a better and more efficient way of handling this. Yes, I think it will be very controversial. I'm sure that companies don't want their products being advertised with all the pure sugar that is in them. As I was studying the differences, I wasn't sure if it was a whole lot easier to read, but making the calories bigger should be extremely useful. I noticed they removed calories from fat, and I wondered why. Calories from fat are basically the amount of calories from the fat in your food. A healthy diet should have about 10 to 30 percent calories in fat. I'm not quite sure why they're cutting it out. Maybe they figure it isn't important where the calories are coming from; just know that some of them are from fat. They also mentioned that sugar from fruit and added sugar were important to be mentioned, so I researched the difference. Sugar naturally from fruit is healthier, I think. A website I visited said that other healthier properties of the fruits helped you digest the sugar slower and made it not as harmful. In the end, I really enjoyed reading this article and think that it will end up being really useful.
I thought that this article was really interesting. However, I agree with Angela that some parts might not be extremely useful. For example, I don't think it matters that much about which side the daily values go on. However, there are some parts that I thought were good. For example, the added sugar part was good. I actually had a few questions, also. Why would the vitamin A and C be more prominent and the vitamin D and potassium be less? To understand better, I looked up more about the vitamins. Vitamin A is in fish and meat, so I'm guessing that you wouldn't need those counts because Americans eat a lot of meat. That would make sense because if we already have enough, we wouldn't need to worry about needing to get MORE. For vitamin C, it seems like many fruits carry it. That makes sense also because many people like to eat fruit. Therefore, with the same theory as I had for vitamin A, I think they don't need to put that count because we already have enough vitamin C. However, I still have to find out about vitamin D. A website said that it comes from fish like salmon and tuna, which are both fairly popular. You can also get it from the sun, which is almost always around. So, I'm not sure why the vitamin D count needs to be so prominent. If anyone finds out, can you post it? I don't understand prominent potassium counts much either. My best guess is from a website that said that people with kidney problems shouldn't eat too much potassium. The potassium counts can help those people decide whether there is too much potassium in there. However, though I think I understand why vitamins A and C can be erased, I'm still not sure why vitamin D and potassium counts are required. In conclusion, I feel like if people actually attempted to read the old nutrition labels, the majority of population would understand it. As the article mentioned, the problem is that most people don't even read calorie counts.
I really think that improving food labeling is important. Improved food labeling will help people who care about what they eat make better decisions about the food they eat. Making the portion size and quantity realistically would give people a more realistic idea of the calories they are eating. Looking at one of the brands of croutons I have at home, the serving size is 2 tablespoons. Looking at croutons from both brands a single croutons was larger than a tablespoon. So I guess the serving size was one crouton cut in half, but who eats just one crouton on their salad. This is just one example poor labeling because 2 tablespoons means that we would have to powder our croutons. Getting the portion size correct will help people find the nutritional information they are looking for. Maybe only a small proportion of people read the labels now, but if the information is easy to find and the proportion size is relevant to how people consume the food than I think more people will start to read the labels. When people start to read the labels more, then the government will hopefully demand that the manufacturers improve the nutritional content.
This was a very good article. I am one of the few people who actually study the nutrition labels, so I should know. I have found that first of all, in order to actually tell what they put in there you need a degree in nutrition, second of all, they really try to rip us off by tweaking their serving sizes (Most people will look at the calories per serving, and if it looks alright, then EAT!), and third, the average snack is really unhealthy. Every piece of meat was an animal fed antibiotics, every snack has tons of fat, and don't even get me started on soda. America is the second most "obese" country in the world, tailing behind Mexico. People used to eat a lot less than people did 20 years ago, and now that the average American has a huge diet they usually can't read a nutrition label and just look at the calories per serving. Unfortunately, there's been a large waste of fat stacks of cash trying to raise obesity awareness when I don't think most people care. Apparently, losing weight and gaining wait (dining) are both big business today. I think that if somebody really wanted to lose weight, they would really start to eat healthy foods, but I believe most people just don't care, and that's why America is so obese. If the FDA, health companies, and the government really wanted people to lose wait, then they would make it illegal to have a certain amount of fat, calories, etc in a snack. Back on topic, I think that the nutrition label is really unfair. The average American man or woman should be able to walk into a store, pick something off a shelf, read the nutrition label and be able to tell if it's good for their family or not. But no, nutrition labels seem to be written in a foreign language, and try to hide the important information as much as possible. But that's just my theory. If people want to lose weight, then they should probably take some drastic measures.
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