There is a new FDA proposed rule on the requirements for a healthy food label on a product. As you can easily see from the figure above, most Americans don’t come close to a healthy diet. A majority don’t eat enough fruits and vegetables, exceed the limit for added sugar and saturated fat, and take in too much sodium. The current healthy labels on our foods are out of date and misleading. The new healthy label does not limit your ability to eat anything that you want. It does make the healthy label more meaningful.
The FDA proposed new healthy label helps consumers to build a diet consistent with current dietary recommendations. “Specifically, to meet the proposed definition, a food product would need to contain a certain amount of food from at least one of the food groups or subgroups (e.g., fruit, vegetables, grains, dairy and protein foods) recommended by the 2020-2025 Dietary Guidelines for Americans.” It is really hard to find healthy foods that are easy to use and it is important to make good choices easier. In my decades of internal medicine practice, I met very few people who wanted to be fat or sick. They need help to lose weight and stay healthy.
As it stands now, health claims on food are not about health. They are about selling more product. The new FDA labels would be better. “To qualify for the “healthy” claim, a breakfast cereal serving would need to contain at least three-quarters of an ounce of whole grains and could contain no more than one gram of saturated fat, 230 milligrams of sodium and 2.5 grams of added sugars. These proposed rules would exclude almost all cereals marketed to children.” Isn’t that crazy. Our kids are bombarded by commercials for these unhealthy cereals that make them too heavy and ultimately lead to chronic illness.
This is a big deal. The food industry is a business and its major concern is profit like any other business. Adding salt, sugar, salt, and processed carbs makes food so delicious that many of us cannot resist it. Companies that make fast and highly processed foods know that and use it in product design. We will eat it when we are not hungry. The more we eat, the more we want. The more salt we eat, the more we want. The more sugar we eat the more we want. When we lower our salt and sugar intake we become accustomed to it in a matter of a few weeks. I never add salt or sugar to anything and try to avoid these ingredients as much as I can. I don’t miss them. I used to crave them, but now I don’t.
I have high blood pressure, prediabetes, and some mild heart artery disease. I have lost 50 pounds and kept it off, but I must avoid those foods with added salt and sugar as much as possible. There are millions of people like me. This new FDA initiative would make it much easier to identify healthier choices and we should all support it. Remember, this only identifies healthier choices. You still have the right to eat food that will make you fat and sick and those products will still be available.
About mild artery disease, have you looked at The Fat Emperor's video on reversing heart disease. I remember that a key thing was to eat lots of sauerkraut (fermented food, actually). I've just looked at my file on interesting videos and will paste in the info:
Ivor Cummins - where the biggest prescription was loads of sauerkraut daily (and other fermented foods): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X4RipKub_Y8&t=1s
(podcast, incl ref to sauerkraut and K2)
The last people in the world we should be taking health or dietary advice from is the FDA, HHS, CDC, WHO. They would prefer us dead not
healthy.