View Full Version : FDA - New Sugar Labeling
The FDA (United States) is going to require new sugar labeling in 2017 on foods. They also have made recommendations for the maximum amount of sugar that children should consume in a day. If I remember correctly, it is 25 grams total per day. One soft drink has a lot more of that or some of the fake juice products. I know that some parents in schools where I worked would give their kids soda and candy bars for breakfast. Kids also brought stuff like that for lunch and probably ate it for dinner too. I wonder how it will affect school breakfast and lunches because the menus at my locations were horrible.
I think the people that eat really poorly don't even look at labels. What I discovered when my kids were in high school was that even if healthy foods were offered........most kids wouldn't eat them. The problem starts at home and the parents don't give a rip enough to change things.
I really think people are uneducated. Keep in mind that many people cannot read at a high enough level to read a label. Then they are in a hurry while shopping. Of course, you might need a magnifying glass to read labels (I do). One day, I needed some cranberry juice at the store, but someone was standing in front of it. So, I waited, then they said what do you need and I said, I want to get a bottle of cranberry juice behind you. They said but there is some down there and it costs less. But, I said it is only 27 percent juice and the rest is sugar water and I want the pure Cranberry juice (which of course costs more). They were clueless about the difference but I gave them a lesson. People also think that wheat bread is whole-wheat bread but it is usually white flour with a bit of whole wheat or with dyes added. Again, I have to explain the difference. Of course, most stores here don't sell anything that is organic or sodium free. I try to limit salt, sugar and fat. Unfortunately, cheap food is not healthy food where I live, and it is a poverty zone. Other issues are that people don't know how to cook or don't have the pots, pans, utensils, appliances or time to prepare a meal. Some people don't even have refrigerators or stoves. They live off of frozen dinners (microwave) and soda - stays fresh without refrigeration. By the way, worked in schools and nutrition isn't taught in most cases anymore either. Back when I was a kid we learned about the 4 food groups (now it is a pyramid) but teachers aren't at fault because they are dealing with too much other nonsense to have time to teach anything.
There are some great programs in schools to educate more, one of my favorites actually had us cooking weekly in the classroom with all the food provided and lessons. I loved it, I had 2nd graders cooking tacos in the classroom! Then they lost their grant funding and I was super sad. There are others. I am super bummed also that our childcare licensing agency does not allow any cooking with the kids and limits what we can do with food, I want to teach the kids to make their own snacks!
However for an urban school district we have the BEST food. It is healthy, everything from scratch, fresh. There are no canned fruits in syrup, all fresh. So it is possible. We even have gardens at schools that sell the produce to the kitchen and composting in the lunchroom.
greenclaire
10-7-16, 4:54am
I'm amazed there is no food education at all in the States? Ours are bombarded with it from a very young age, they all do 'food technology' at school which is basically cooking and nutrition and even in biology lessons we cover food science. Our school meals also have to meet certain nutritional standards. We still have obese children though, our kids still eat junk because a huge factor is what goes on at home. School is only one tiny part of what can influence children.
iris lilies
10-7-16, 8:54am
I'm amazed there is no food education at all in the States? Ours are bombarded with it from a very young age, they all do 'food technology' at school which is basically cooking and nutrition and even in biology lessons we cover food science. Our school meals also have to meet certain nutritional standards. We still have obese children though, our kids still eat junk because a huge factor is what goes on at home. School is only one tiny part of what can influence children.
Of course there is food education here. Lots of it.
greenclaire
10-7-16, 9:15am
Of course there is food education here. Lots of it.
I thought it would be very odd if there wasn't!
Of course, most of the "education" here is corporate provided, so very, very suspect. Coke is under fire right now for their BS and payola, but they're just one example of the endless parade of nutritional grifters making money portraying themselves as experts.
In my neighborhood grocery stores gluten free seems to be the big health label and there are gluten free sections in some of the departments. Not that it's not important, but I think some, but not all, of the gluten threat is overblown for much of the population. I'd think sugar might deserve an even higher label priority if you can believe everything. At some point people are gong to have label saturation and either be confused or overwhelmed.
Our society is all mixed up. People are encouraged to make money, yet companies know all about how to take advantage of human nature/primitive urges/etc. Of course our primitive bodies are drawn to sugar/fat/salt/carbs. Even being educated about that and the bad things too much of it can cause doesn't always help. It triggers things in some of us that can make us crave it like addicts. And there are so many people out there who go with that and haven't a clue it's bad.......or have parents or are in a group that that just doesn't care about those things. Think about what happened when Bloomberg tried to make a change......people were irate. "That's too much government involvement.......We should have the choice!" the masses cried.
This country is a delicate balance of things that are bad for us, but permitted because of our belief in freedom of choice.......but there are so many people out there who don't give a rip about health. And it would be unAmerican to tell pop companies, or Hostess, etc., that they can't sell their bad stuff any more. We want it all. We want to sell anything we want and buy anything we want and have insurance cover all our problems when we spend our lives eating crap all the time.
Personally.......as far as school meals go......I would serve healthy stuff and if the kids threw it out, then they'd go hungry. If the parents screamed foul, too bad. You eat the good stuff, or you don't eat.. And I don't care what the good stuff costs......that should be a cost that should be covered. Get rid of some of the less important stuff. Start treating education and our children's health like it was important.
Who gets to decide what's healthy? For the last several decades, it's been Big Food, with government enforcement.
And look at the outcome of that.
I worked in schools for years and next to no food or health education and my kids didn't get it either.
Schools here are poor and bad - won't change either - just keeps getting worse.
My kids rarely got restaurant food and they hated school lunches and no I didn't pack because the food was stolen from the bags and lockers. Plus, no refrigeration either.
Kids only get about 5 minutes to stuff the food in their faces too which is really bad IMO.
But this is poverty ville and no wheres ville.
Home ec is not what it was back in the olden days at all.
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