[HN Gopher] After 30 years, FDA overhauls guideline for the clai...
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After 30 years, FDA overhauls guideline for the claim "healthy" on
food packages
Author : Jimmc414
Score : 55 points
Date : 2024-12-30 14:50 UTC (8 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.wsj.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.wsj.com)
| soared wrote:
| > Avocados, nuts and seeds are among products that will now
| qualify to use the "healthy" claim. Avocado, salmon and water are
| among the foods that will qualify for a "healthy" claim on food
| packaging.
|
| Yeah maybe there are some issues with government efficiency if it
| took 30 years for foods like this to be able to brand themselves
| healthy whereas white bread could false advertise with FDA
| approval.
| blackeyeblitzar wrote:
| Yep. It is a huge and corrupt bureaucracy. This should have
| taken literally a day's worth of work. Even the time from when
| they proposed the rule change to now is over 2 years!
| icegreentea2 wrote:
| I think this should have moved faster, but there's no way
| this is a single days work.
|
| Especially since a large part of the required work is meta
| work to show that they worked "properly".
|
| There are executive orders (and maybe laws? can't remember)
| that require all rule making to be subject to thorough cost
| benefit analysis.
|
| One of the required actions between a proposed and final rule
| is to review, reply to, and perhaps amend rules based on
| comments. The final report indicates 400 comments, and
| includes responses to basically all of them.
| blackeyeblitzar wrote:
| All of that is evidence of the ineffectiveness of
| government bureaucracies. You're describing the way things
| work today. I'm saying the way it works is broken and needs
| to change. Allowing claims that salmon or water is healthy
| shouldn't take long.
| BadHumans wrote:
| Salmon can be accumulators of plastics and heavy metals.
| It is not as simple was labeling things as healthy or not
| healthy.
| blackeyeblitzar wrote:
| Salmon is healthy and it is that simple. You're bringing
| up unproductive questions that could go on forever about
| any food. If that's the goal, we don't need the
| bureaucracy. It's the same outcome as shutting down this
| part of the agency, since they aren't going to declare
| anything until decades after the world already moved on
| from their broken guidance and figured out that salmon or
| whatever else is healthy. No one serious questions that
| salmon is healthy, obviously. So let's at least save the
| money.
| tayo42 wrote:
| Disagree that these are unproductive questions.
|
| For tuna it's recommended you don't eat it frequently
| becasue of high mercury levels.
|
| Why would not consider that for things like salmon?
| maerF0x0 wrote:
| And there's the wild vs farmed issue. And then it matters
| which waters they're in, and feed their given etc.
| icegreentea2 wrote:
| I agree that it should go faster.
|
| Unfortunately government bureaucracies basically operate
| in low trust mode because of accumulated scar tissue from
| previous problems.
|
| Ripping out guard rails without building a high trust
| environment is asking for a speed run of all of the scar
| tissue to reform.
|
| The fact that you characterized a slow process as
| corrupt, when a huge amount of the slowness is because of
| mandated rules put in place to attempt to mitigate
| corruption is in itself a sign of the low trust hell that
| these regulators live in.
| toast0 wrote:
| > Allowing claims that salmon or water is healthy
| shouldn't take long.
|
| Seems suss. The root word of Salmonella is Salmon;
| clearly it may not be healthy.
|
| Water is just a rebranding of dihydrogen monixide, and we
| all know how bad that stuff is. It's made from rocket
| fuel, and you're trying to push it off as healthy?
| mikestew wrote:
| _The root word of Salmonella is Salmon; clearly it may
| not be healthy._
|
| If you're digging up Dr. Salmon, after whom Salmonella is
| named, and consuming his corpse...yeah, that might be a
| bad idea.
| otterley wrote:
| The speed (or lack thereof) at which our administrative
| agencies make rules is a reflection of the speed (or lack
| thereof) at which our democracy reaches consensus on
| change. What you're seeing isn't so much inefficiency,
| but rather how process works in a democracy. It's slow
| because Congress made it slow.
|
| If we lived in a dictatorship, things would go faster,
| public be damned. China gets things done, but at great
| expense to the impacted people.
| nxobject wrote:
| Either sadly or reassuringly, the same rulemaking making
| processes apply to both contentious things and relatively
| uncontroversial ideas like these. (Actually, this is an
| oversimplification, I think ED "Dear Colleague" letters don't
| go through the full battery of established processes.)
| nerdponx wrote:
| The biggest impediment to government efficiency is lobbying and
| propaganda by various special interests that do not have the
| public good in mind. Imagine how much would get done without
| those things.
| hughrlomas wrote:
| FDA link: https://www.fda.gov/food/nutrition-food-labeling-and-
| critica...
| Eumenes wrote:
| Okay, now apply those guidelines to vulnerable members of society
| who purchase groceries via EBT/food stamps. I don't think soda,
| ultra processed foods, or candy would count?
| blackeyeblitzar wrote:
| I don't think the healthy aspect affects eligibility food
| stamps. As I recall soda makes up 10% or more of all food stamp
| spending and the manufacturing have repeatedly successfully
| lobbied to keep sodas on there.
| HappySweeney wrote:
| That is because soda is used as a medium to convert the
| balance to cash.
| potato3732842 wrote:
| Usually at $.50 on the dollar (same as the going rate for
| letting someone else use your EBT/SNAP but way more
| convenient).
| aoppaol wrote:
| Related article about how the FDA has not formally reevaluated
| the safety of Red 40 in over a decade:
|
| https://www.cbsnews.com/amp/news/what-is-red-dye-40-effects/
| wgjordan wrote:
| From the FDA page [1]:
|
| > To meet the updated criteria for the claim, a food product
| needs to:
|
| > 1. contain a certain amount of food from at least one of the
| food groups or subgroups (such as fruit, vegetables, grains, fat-
| free and low-fat dairy and protein foods) recommended by the
| Dietary Guidelines for Americans, and
|
| > 2. meet specific limits for added sugars, saturated fat and
| sodium.
|
| [1] https://www.fda.gov/food/nutrition-food-labeling-and-
| critica...
| grecy wrote:
| > _recommended by the Dietary Guidelines for Americans_
|
| Don't we now know with 100% certainty the sugar lobby in
| America seriously manipulated the dietary guidelines?
| bsuvc wrote:
| Do you mean corn?
|
| Most American food has High Fructose Corn Syrup instead of
| Sugar.
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| It's still sugar, and the reason it's bad is because it's
| sugar rather than the exact composition.
| llamaimperative wrote:
| I think they're saying it is the corn lobby, not the
| sugar lobby, that distorted our diet guidelines so much.
|
| Corn = huge "real American" industry
|
| Sugar = not
| Retric wrote:
| Corn _is_ the US sugar lobby.
|
| Pretending they are different things is mostly just
| marketing at this point.
| llamaimperative wrote:
| "I hate what the sugar lobby has done to our country but
| damnit I'll come out swinging against anyone coming after
| our corn farmers' subsidies!"
|
| - a reasonable misunderstanding to have when people speak
| the way you're suggesting
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| Saying it's really the corn lobby is fine, but "corn
| syrup instead of sugar" is not the right way to describe
| things.
| npalli wrote:
| The biggest changes seem (at least from the quiz) is to _not_
| automatically label high-fat food as unhealthy and
| correspondingly label high sugar foods as probably not healthy.
| Good changes.
| ruffrey wrote:
| If you look at the table and do the math to convert obfuscated
| units, a 3/4 ounce serving of "whole grains" may have 5g of added
| sugar, which is 5/21.26 g or 23.5% added sugar.
|
| This seems like an obvious problem to me. Despite some progress
| with adding nuts and salmon.
| boh wrote:
| Unfortunately the FDA has limited resource to actually police
| most of their existing guidelines and will have just as much
| trouble policing this one.
|
| Buy and cook raw ingredients as often as you can because the only
| way packaged foods make a profit is either to lower costs or
| increase prices, and neither option is to your benefit.
| kbelder wrote:
| You forgot 'sell more'.
| boh wrote:
| Food is pretty low margin--selling more is often less
| lucrative than costing less, since selling more often costs
| more in marketing costs, hampering profitability.
| Jimmc414 wrote:
| The FDA gets 7.2 Billion dollars per year. The problem is
| probably that 3.3 Billion of that is paid by "User fees" which
| have effectively become a vehicle for industry lobbyists
|
| https://www.fda.gov/media/166050/download
| robomartin wrote:
| I could be wrong on this, yet my impression is that the
| bureaucrats, given RFK's intentions, are in fear for their jobs
| and are looking to mitigate exposure by, well, actually starting
| to do their jobs.
|
| The damage cause to society by a vast array of foods is likely
| the top contributor to not only disease-caused mortality but the
| massive cost of providing healthcare. The appointment of someone
| like RFK, with a mission to push for a healthy food supply makes
| me hopeful that we will find a path to better results.
|
| On a personal level, after recognizing the terrible effects of
| bad food, I set out on a mission to change. I was type 2 diabetic
| and was also taking medication for hypertension. I changed my
| diet. Actively avoided everything outside what I call "basic"
| foods. I also added long term (7 to 14 day) fasting to help me
| push me over to the other side. It took a few months and effort.
| Today I am no-longer taking any medication and my blood tests
| come back with positive marks across the board. No more diabetes
| or hypertension.
|
| Before someone suggests some of the changes had to do with
| exercise, well, no, that was not the case. I was determined to
| understand this issue of proper nutrition. So, I stopped all
| exercise for several months in order to isolate effects. I only
| started walking a couple of miles per day once I was off all
| medications. I achieved this result sitting in front of my
| computer coding and working, with the only change being dietary.
|
| How many people out there have broken bodies and never-ending
| medical needs simply because they are eating horrible food? Well,
| if we are talking about diabetes --a metabolic disease-- the
| number is well over 35 million, with over a million people
| diagnosed every year and over 5000 children as well:
|
| https://www.cdc.gov/diabetes/about/about-type-2-diabetes.htm...
|
| And for the vast majority of cases, you can eliminate and reverse
| this with food.
|
| Look at the list of complications introduced by type 2 diabetes:
| - Heart and blood vessel disease - Nerve damage in limbs
| - Other nerve damage (heart, digestive system, etc.) -
| Kidney disease - Eye damage - Skin conditions -
| Slow healing - Hearing damage - Sleep apnea -
| Dementia
|
| https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/type-2-diabet...
|
| And that's just one of the diseases with nutrition as a root
| cause.
|
| So, yeah, healthy food is important. The FDA needs to get a
| handle on this.
| icegreentea2 wrote:
| It's possible that the RFK thing is driving some urgency, but
| the timeline is broadly in line with their stated goals from
| their 2016 to 2025 strategic plan. They started this whole
| process with public consultation in 2017, and released the
| proposed plan back in 2022.
| brookst wrote:
| Agreed. If this was some "pandering to the new boss" thing
| they would have fast tracked approvals for eating roadkill.
| robomartin wrote:
| A change in urgency is good. The issues with our food have
| been known for quite some time. Given the carnage and damage
| to health at a massive scale, taking seven years to start
| acting is irresponsible. This isn't new knowledge at all.
|
| An airplane crashes and it becomes top news for days. Five
| thousand children and a million people per year are diagnosed
| with a diet-induced disease with horrible consequences and
| the media pays no attention to the issue at all.
|
| The death and destruction caused by the global metabolic
| disease pandemic should make everyone take pause:
|
| https://www.cell.com/cell-
| metabolism/pdf/S1550-4131(23)00039...
|
| For context, COVID is estimated to have killed approximately
| 7 million people world-wide. Metabolic disease is killing
| over TEN MILLION every year and has been killing over 8
| million per year for the last 20 years. And I am just quoting
| data from the Cell Metabolism Journal publication, which only
| covers 20 years. The destruction goes back decades beyond
| that.
|
| In other words, this has been a real "clear and present
| danger" case for decades. This is precisely why these
| agencies need to be shake-up to the core. What have they been
| doing for the last 20 or 30 years?
| llamaimperative wrote:
| Never before has someone thought to take on the US food
| industry! I'm sure they'll just bend over and take it this
| time, and I'm sure their Congressional defenders from the
| heartland will totally let them this time because... reasons.
| Lol.
| tayo42 wrote:
| Isnt farmed salmon pretty iffy on healthy? I read something that
| basically made me stop eating farmed salmon.
|
| There seems to be a handful of farms near maybe Norway that the
| high end grocery stores carry that claim to be different but
| couldn't verify.
|
| They use like food coloring to make up for their unnatural farm
| diet.
| nerdponx wrote:
| The FDA guidelines only look at macronutrients. There a lot of
| "unhealthy" things that would be considered "healthy" by both
| the old and new standards.
| maerF0x0 wrote:
| I'd wager it would have quite a bit more impact if all other
| foods had to put something like "Unhealthy!" on the nutrition
| info panel. Even better they could help break down the binary
| thinking and battles over single words and double down on
| something like nutrient density (quick hit from google:
| https://www.cdc.gov/pcd/issues/2014/13_0390.htm )
| djsavvy wrote:
| I'm not quite sure about that -- a lot of other countries have
| those sort of warning labels on foods or a comparison of the
| nutrition facts with healthier foods, and I'm not sure how much
| of an impact that label would end up having. I think it would
| be like the prop 65 stickers in California -- it ends up
| becoming so ubiquitous it's effectively meaningless. I got a
| new espresso maker with a prop 65 label on it but am just
| ignoring it since I doubt it's actually leaching lead into my
| coffee despite the label saying it will.
| immibis wrote:
| I'm not sure what the relevant law is but a lot of packaged
| foods here (Germany) have nutrition scores A-E displayed
| prominently on the front corner. Apparently it's relative to
| a category, so they don't end up with E on all frozen pizzas
| and A on all frozen veggies, but can actually be used to see
| which frozen pizza is healthier.
| Jimmc414 wrote:
| One tangentially related example is Tic Tacs, which contain 94.5%
| sugar[0] but can legally advertise as "0 sugar" because the
| serving size is less than 0.5 grams under FDA labeling rules.[1]
| [2]
|
| [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tic_Tac
|
| [1]
| https://www.accessdata.fda.gov/scripts/cdrh/cfdocs/cfcfr/CFR...
|
| [2] https://i.imgur.com/9p6dMgD.jpg
| jjtheblunt wrote:
| i believe the ingredients list is ordered by amount of
| ingredient, so it's a quick scan to see if sugar (of whatever
| sort) is an added ingredient, despite the nonsense of numerical
| truncation being allowed in grams.
| J_Shelby_J wrote:
| All I want is a pie chart showing percent of calories from
| macros.
|
| 10% fat, 50% protein, 40% carbs.
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