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| Love it or hate it, Americas eat a lot of sugar--upwards of 150 lbs a year per person! Source: http://www.attn.com/stories/131/how-sugar-similar-cocaine |
Ah, sugar. America’s love-hate relationship with the sometimes-naturally-occurring-but-more-often-than-not-refined substance is controversial at best (as in the eternal debate over the safety of high fructose corn syrup) and criminal at worst (like when New York City tried to ban the sale of sugar-sweetened drinks larger than 16 ounces). While it sure seems like we can’t get enough of the stuff (given the variety of sugary products that are available in our grocery stores and the fact that diabetes is more rampant than ever), low carb diets & ketogenic diets are also more popular than ever. Given its notoriety, its hard to imagine Americans are somehow unaware that sugar is an ingredient to watch out for and avoid in excess, yet Americans are constantly being told through advertising to give in to our desires and reward ourselves with indulgent desserts. Given this dichotomy, what are we to do as a country?!
One change being proposed, thanks in part to First Lady Michelle Obama’s campaign against childhood obesity, is the FDA proposing the first update in 20 years to the Nutrition Facts Label that graces the side of every food product sold in this country. You know, this guy!
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| Source: http://www.fda.gov/Food/IngredientsPackagingLabeling/LabelingNutrition/ucm275438.htm |
The recommended changes include updated serving size information, clearer daily percentages, and (perhaps unsurprisingly controversial) an "added sugars" category (see below).
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| Source: http://www.fda.gov/Food/GuidanceRegulation/GuidanceDocumentsRegulatoryInformation/LabelingNutrition/ucm385663.htm |
So why is this little guy and his little added sugar subheading so controversial? Well, to quote those clickbait ads you see everywhere, "corporations HATE him!" That's right, Campbell Soup Co., the cranberry industry as a whole (turns out that stuff is pretty bitter without sugar), Kellogg, Roman Meal Co. (a whole-grain bread company), and Dannon all have called to have the proposed nutrition label change scrapped. Why? Probably because Americans would be shocked by how much added sugar is in the products, which might just affect their purchasing habits.
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| To many consumers, its not always obvious which products naturally contain sugar and which have sugar added (sometimes in surprising amounts) Source: http://healthtipsdailybasis.blogspot.com/2015/06/alison-lost-10-pounds-by-cutting-this_23.html |
One wonders what this means for the relationship between government regulation, consumer rights, and corporate interests. It begs the question of what the consumer deserves to know about their food they are purchasing and consuming. Should consumers be able to identify the origin of where their beef comes from? Should consumers have the right to know whether a product contains GMOs? Should the consumer be hidden from the fact that a milk product has had aspartame added to its ingredients? These are all valid questions, and the issues behind them are not always as cut and dry as you might think...
To be fair, however, another valid concern worth looking at is over the average consumer's ability to read a nutrition label correctly. Let's take a look at the labels below, for instance. A recent study published in the Journal of the Academy of Nutrition & Dietetics looked at this very issue, specifically how well consumers could decipher what "added sugars" means. Take a look at the labels below:
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From left to right: the current nutrition facts labeling system listing only “sugars” (version s), a proposed label listing both “sugars” and a subheading of “added sugars”(version s+a), and another proposed label listing “total sugars” and a subheading of “added sugars” (version ts+a)
Source: http://www.andjrnl.org/article/S2212-2672(15)00505-5/fulltext
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Sugars (on the left label) clearly includes all sugars, right? 92% of those interviewed were able to figure that out. But did 8g of "added sugars" mean it was in addition to the 21g of "sugars" listed on the middle label? 52% of those interviewed mistakenly thought so. However, only 33% of those interviewed misunderstood the label on the right, with 67% correctly determining that "added sugars" was already included in the "total sugars" category. This just goes to show how important research is to figuring out better ways to convey information to the public!
So what does this mean for the new nutrition facts label? The FDA has got its work cut out for it! These messages might seem straightforward to the nutrition professional, but that's because we work with this information day in and day out. Not everyone else is so fortunate as to be surrounded by food and nutritional knowledge as we are. But in all seriousness, its not easy to distill information so that as many people as possible can easily understand it. That's why we RDNs and other nutritional professionals have to constantly be honing and perfecting our message to reach as many people as effectively possible.
"Get back to the part about sugar!" you say? Well, here's a quick rundown of the evidence-based facts we have on sugar:
- As mentioned earlier, sugar is best enjoyed in moderation (the WHO recommends <25g of sugar a day)
- As far as we know now, there is no scientifically significant difference between the way our bodies process the different types of sugars (i.e. honey vs. HFCS vs. fructose vs. sucrose)
- Sugar may be addictive in large, frequent quantities, lending an interesting point to the obesity debate, but the research is still lacking
- It does, however, lend well to the idea that sugar is best enjoyed in moderation as previously recommended
- The same advice is given to artificial sweeteners: use in moderation to ensure safety (which most Americans already do)
- Sugar does not cause hyperactivity in children, but it can displace desperately needed essential nutrients in a child's diet that could be obtained from healthier foods
So what's the moral of the story? Just as we've heard since the dawn of civilization: all things in moderation (sugar included).
Main Article:
Laquatra, I., Sollid, K., Smith Edge, M., Pelzel, J., & Turner, J. (2015). Including “Added Sugars” on the Nutrition Facts Panel: How Consumers Perceive the Proposed Change. Journal of the Academy of Nutrition & Dietetics, 115(11), 1758-1763. doi:10.1016/j.jand.2015.04.017
Other References and Links:
http://www.diabetes.org/diabetes-basics/statistics/
http://www.diabetes.org/diabetes-basics/statistics/
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