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1A

What Nutrition Labels Really Tell Us About Our Food

1A

NPR

News

4.34.5K Ratings

🗓️ 25 July 2023

⏱️ 34 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Many of us have likely felt confused by food labels before. But nutrition facts can offer important information about what we're consuming. There are several efforts underway to make the labels on our food more clear for consumers.

Earlier this year, a bill was introduced in California that would change the language around expiration dates from "sell by" or "enjoy by" to "use by" or "best if used by" to minimize confusion.

And last month, the FDA said it would test out putting nutrition labels on the front of packages in hopes of making them more accessible.

We discuss food labels; what you like and hate about them, how to read them, and what they may look like in the future.

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Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

Okay, so picture this.

0:09.2

Close your eyes for a second.

0:10.2

Now imagine you're walking down the snack aisle in your grocery store and you pick up a

0:14.6

box of cheeses.

0:15.6

Okay, so you open your eyes.

0:16.9

Normally you don't pay a lot of attention to nutrition labels, but today you turn the

0:20.0

box around and you take a look.

0:22.0

Now you understand the calorie numbers and big bold letters.

0:25.2

But beneath that there's words like polyunsaturated fat, motto unsaturated fat, a whole list of percentages

0:31.8

under daily values.

0:33.6

Now you've been told to watch your sodium intake.

0:36.2

11% of your daily value doesn't sound all that high, but 250 milligrams does.

0:43.3

Frazel, you put the box of cheese, it's back and you move on.

0:46.6

Look, a lot of us have felt confused by food labels before this.

0:50.9

But nutrition facts really have a lot of important information for us about what we're

0:55.4

putting inside our bodies.

0:57.7

There are a lot of efforts underway right now to make the labels on our food clearer

1:02.3

for consumers.

1:03.3

Earlier this year, a bill was introduced in California that would change the language

1:07.4

around expiration dates.

1:09.2

And last month, the FDA said it will test out nutrition labels on the front of packages

1:14.4

in hopes of making them more accessible.

...

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