As we enjoy the holiday week food-based festivities and look forward to 2025, I note with interest that the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recently finalized new rules for labeling foods as “healthy” for the first time in 30 years, updating the guidelines to align with its version of nutritional science.
The United States has redefined what qualifies as “healthy” food for the first time in 30 years, striking items like white bread from the list while welcoming nutrient-rich options such as eggs and salmon, officials said Thursday.The move comes against the backdrop of a growing domestic crisis of preventable, diet-related chronic diseases, which experts warn demand immediate action.The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) also announced it is developing a new symbol to help manufacturers quickly signal to consumers that a food meets the “healthy” criteria.”Diet-related diseases, including heart disease, cancer and diabetes, are the leading cause of disability and disease in the United States and contribute to America’s status having the lowest life expectancy amongst large high-income countries,” senior FDA official Jim Jones told reporters.
A few thoughts come to mind, as related to this announcement. Personally, I find the timing intriguing, as President/President-elect Donald Trump’s pick for leading Health and Human Services, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., has the FDA and the American diet in his crosshairs.
The move may be an attempt to make the food division a less appealing target for Kennedy’s attention.
The FDA’s food division, poised to play a significant role in Kennedy’s ambitions, operates on a tight budget. Unlike the agency’s drug division, which sustains itself largely through user fees charged to pharmaceutical companies when they apply for drug approval, its food division relies more heavily on funding from Congress, said Jerold Mande, a former FDA senior adviser and former deputy undersecretary for food safety at the Department of Agriculture. (Separately, Kennedy has suggested he wants to end user fees, arguing the system creates a conflict of interest.)Historically, Mande said, Congress has been reluctant to provide money to the agency’s food and nutrition program.“The FDA’s food program has a billion-dollar budget, and only $25 million of that goes to food nutrition and chronic disease,” said Mande, now an adjunct professor at Harvard University and the CEO of Nourish Science, a food advocacy group. “So there’s almost no money for it, and that is the No. 1 barrier: they don’t have the budget or staff to do anything.” The industry, she said, likely spends millions more on lobbying Congress. Kennedy’s ideas about food are “great,” she said, but “how you do that, I’m not so sure.”
However, many are quite skeptical about these new guidelines.
As I have noted before, red meat is an essential part of a truly healthy diet.
Furthermore,the new rules were developed as part of a national strategy outlined by the Biden Administration at the Conference on Hunger, Nutrition, and Health in 2022.
Use of “healthy” labeling is voluntary for food manufacturers. Foods that meet the new requirements can start using the label early next year, while those that don’t currently meet the standards of the new rule have three years to conform….The FDA is also working on a symbol that can be put on packages to help consumers more easily identify foods that are considered healthy and developing a plan for nutrition labeling that would go on the front of food packaging to complement the more in-depth labels on the back.
What has the Biden administration done that was truly in the best interest of the American people? And slapping a decorative pictogram on a product is hardly innovative and not likely to make substantive change in diet priorities.
And, it appears that “diversity-equity-inclusion” calculations went into guideline development.
FDA noted that the updates to this “healthy” criteria will allow affordable, accessible, and culturally preferred nutrient-dense foods within different groups and subgroups to contain the “healthy” claim, including frozen, canned, dried, and other shelf-stable products.
Yet, to be fair, a portion of the new guidelines are sensible.
Under the rule, products that claim to be “healthy” must contain a certain amount of food from one or more food groups such as fruit, vegetables, grains, dairy and protein. And for the first time, the rule sets certain limits for added sugars. Foods must also limit sodium and saturated fat at levels that depend on the type of product, the FDA said.The change banishes foods such as sugary cereals, highly sweetened yogurts, white bread and some granola bars from bearing a “healthy” label, while allowing foods such as avocados, olive oil, salmon, eggs and some trail mix to use it. Even water can now be labeled as healthy, the agency said.
It will be interesting to see if RFKJr can clear the Senate confirmation hearing hoops and improve upon these new rules, without the undue influence of the food industry lobby.
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