The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is changing the way food companies can claim their products are “healthy.” Enriched white bread is left out of that list and fatty fish, such as salmon, is included.
According to the new rule published this Thursday, almost all products in the fruit and vegetable section of the supermarket could be considered “healthy.” Other nutrient-rich foods, such as whole grains, dairy products, eggs, beans, lentils, seafood, lean meat, nuts and seeds also pass the test, as long as they are limited in sugar, salt and saturated fat.
Frozen and canned fruits and vegetables were included in the new “healthy” category.
This is an attempt to help shoppers confused by nutrition labels that give no real guidance on whether one product is better than another.
“People will now be able to search for the ‘healthy’ claim to help them find essential, nutritious foods for themselves and their families,” FDA Commissioner Robert Califf wrote in a media statement.
Nutrition experts They were encouraged by the change.
“This is a big step forward,” said Dr. Dariush Mozaffarian, a cardiologist and director of the Food is Medicine Institute at the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy at Tufts University. “For the first time, the FDA will judge foods not on a handful of negative nutrients like calories, fat or salt, but on whether the food has healthy ingredients.”
The previous rule, established in 1994, set a cap on total fat, which excluded products with heart-healthy fat, such as avocados. Products could also qualify if they contained at least 10% of the daily value of certain vitamins, calcium, iron, protein or fiber.
The manufacturers found a loophole.
“This led companies to enrich junk food and call it healthy,” Mozaffarian explained. Fruit juices could be labeled “healthy” if they had enough vitamin C, for example, despite the huge amount of added sugar.
The new classification eliminates that criterion. Among the products that can no longer claim to be healthy are enriched white bread and highly sugary yogurts and cereals.
It is one of the last moves of the Biden Administration, and it is likely that be adopted by the Trump administration.
The president-elect’s pick to lead the Department of Health and Human Services, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., has repeatedly said that replacing ultra-processed foods with healthier alternatives should be a priority to combat chronic diseases, such as type 2 diabetes.
Changes will not happen overnight. The FDA has given until 2028 for companies to comply with the regulations.
Still, experts say abandoning the nutrient-focused approach is good for consumers.
The idea reminds Elisabetta Politi, a dietician at the Duke Lifestyle and Weight Management Center in Durham, North Carolina, who grew up in Italy, where meals are considered “sacred.”
The quality of the food mattered more than the number of carbohydrates in a pasta dish, for example, he explained.
“When we make dinner, we don’t think about carbs and fat. We think about broccoli and chicken, maybe quinoa,” she said. “It’s much more understandable.”
How do you define “healthy”?
A push to change how “healthy” is defined occurred in 2015, when the FDA sent a warning letter to the makers of Kind fruit and nut bars. According to the FDA, the company could not claim that its bars were healthy because they contained too many calories and saturated fat.
The company responded that these calories and fats were due to the nuts in its products, which have been shown to be beneficial due to their high content of healthy fats for the cardiac system.
The FDA agreed and began the process to update the meaning of “healthy” on food labels.
Nearly a decade later, the FDA now says the updated “healthy” rule is consistent with current U.S. dietary guidelines, and “includes a focus on the importance of healthy dietary patterns and the food groups that comprise them, the type of fat in the diet rather than the total amount of fat consumed, and the amount of sodium and added sugars in the diet.”
The FDA too is working on a “healthy” symbol that companies can add to packaging. The nutrition labels currently in use have not been shown to make a difference in consumers’ awareness of nutrition or how well they eat. The agency states that 75% of Americans lack adequate levels of fruits and vegetables in their diet.
“The updated definition should give consumers more confidence when they see the ‘healthy’ claim when making a purchase,” Nancy Brown, executive director of the American Heart Association, said in a statement. “We hope it will encourage food manufacturers to develop new, healthier products that qualify to use the ‘healthy’ claim.”
Brown also encouraged the FDA to move forward with another rule that would put key nutritional information on the front of packages.
Some experts worried that people might rely too much on a new “healthy” label from the FDA.
“Dietary needs are specific to each person”said Fran Fleming-Milici, director of marketing initiatives at the Rudd Center for Food and Health Policy at the University of Connecticut. “A ‘healthy’ claim on a package can actually prevent consumers from delving deeper into nutritional content and other ingredients that may not be right for them.”
