Updates to the food label: Can you spot the differences?

It has been more than 20 years since the food labels were standardized. Many things have changed in these two decades -  from ingredients, to processes and quality of products and even more so the health of consumers and the growing obesity issues. 

However labels have not kept up with the times, Until now.......



This week, FDA proposed major changes to the nutrition facts label hoping to bring awareness among consumers about what they are eating. First Lady, Michelle Obama and her campaign "Let's Move" spurred these changes. The announcement was made to correspond with the campaigns 4th anniversary. With the proposed changes, more than 700,000 labels will be getting a makeover. The label changes reflect the concern about childhood obesity and the American diet. 

Obama's goal it to make sure labels are informative and helpful, so "a consumer can walk into a grocery store, pick an item off the shelf and tell if it is good for your family".

FDA has released two versions of the proposed label and has publicly displayed them for voting to see which label is more acceptable. The changes on the label have been carefully thought through to make sure the label is user friendly. The goal of the proposed changes is not to tell people what they should eat, but to provide information that people can use to make their own choices. 

As they say, changes are not easy. For the food industry, labels changes are likely to cost nearly $2 billion! But its effect on health is estimated to be many times.The biggest question though is, will these changes increase the number of people reading labels, now that the labels are a lot easier to understand?  

So here is a little puzzle for you...

Can you spot the differences between the old label (on the left) and the proposed label (on the right)? (Hint: There are seven)

Keep your eyes open for my next blog post. I will give you the answers and also tell you the reasoning behind the changes. So stay tuned...........