03.01.13
The Nutrition Facts label was introduced 20 years ago and provides consumers with information about serving size, number of servings in a package, number of calories per serving and the amount of nutrients for each serving of a packaged food. However, research has shown that consumers often miscalculate the number of calories in, and the nutritional content of, products that have two or more servings per container but are usually consumed in a single eating occasion.
Two nutrition-labeling changes could make nutritional content information easier to understand: 1) dual-column information that details single-serving and total-package nutrition information, and 2) declaring nutritional information for the entire container.
Amy Lando, MPP, and Serena Lo, PhD, of FDA’s Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition (CFSAN), conducted an online study with more than 9,000 participants to measure consumers’ accuracy in using modified versions of the Nutrition Facts label and to assess their perceptions of how useful, trustworthy and helpful the label was. Study investigators determined that participants could more accurately assess the number of calories, amount of fat or other nutrients per serving and in the entire package when a single, large serving per container format or a dual-column format was used.
Two nutrition-labeling changes could make nutritional content information easier to understand: 1) dual-column information that details single-serving and total-package nutrition information, and 2) declaring nutritional information for the entire container.
Amy Lando, MPP, and Serena Lo, PhD, of FDA’s Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition (CFSAN), conducted an online study with more than 9,000 participants to measure consumers’ accuracy in using modified versions of the Nutrition Facts label and to assess their perceptions of how useful, trustworthy and helpful the label was. Study investigators determined that participants could more accurately assess the number of calories, amount of fat or other nutrients per serving and in the entire package when a single, large serving per container format or a dual-column format was used.