FDA Looking to Update Food Labels

While the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has been good about adapting how it operates to a world that is full of high tech devices that can be both good and bad for the public at large, the agency is also good at dealing with less high tech solutions as well. The agency’s latest move is one that could help people better understand the labels that accompany so many food products these days.

The FDA has announced that it is giving the 20-year-old design of food labels an update and has set the new design on the path for final approval. “The agency is working toward publishing proposed rules to update the nutrition facts label and serving size information to improve consumer understanding and use of nutrition information on food labels,” said Juli Putnam, a media spokesperson for the FDA in an email to TIME Magazine. “For example, the initial nutritional facts label focused on fat in the diet. There is now a shift to focus on calories to help consumers construct healthy diets.”

The agency is not revealing what the plans for the new labels will include but there have been nutrition experts calling for changes for years. The FDA and these experts hope that the update will allow people to understand what they are putting in their bodies even more. The labels are also said to be reflecting more important aspects of a person’s diets. This could mean a new focus on calories, instead of fat content.

Added sugar could also be highlighted on the labels. This kind of information could be especially important as the country sees a rise in problems that can come from poor eating habits such as Diabetes. Some nutritionists believe that there needs to a new emphasis on the amount of wheat that are in foods. Others believe that the labels needs to be bigger, and needs to get rid of metric measurements such as grams.

Whatever the changes, it will mean that food manufacturers need to change their labels. The FDA believes that’s a small price to pay in a fight to make sure the “iconic doesn’t become a relic.”