Is this really, seriously necessary? It's just depressing to think that we all need our hands held through food shopping, of all things. It seems like a huge segment of the world manages to eat in a reasonably healthy way without pages of nutrition data on every single thing they consume, and yet in America we need a glowing neon sign to warn us against eating massive quantities of overprocessed crap...either that or we are in serious denial about what it is we eat.

This might be useful in helping people wade through the morass of dubious 'health claims' that are put on food products by the manufacturers. Or it could contribute to making an already-neurotic population even more orthorexic. Six of one, half-dozen of the other.

This quote was pretty interesting:
"The scoring system will let consumers compare different types of the same food, so they will be able to tell not only that fruit is healthier than candy, but which fruits or candy are more or less healthy.
"It's all candy, none of it is going to compare to broccoli," Katz said. "But face it, when you want candy, broccoli isn't going to do the job."

But, also, when you want candy (and presuming candy doesn't make up a significant portion of your daily diet), how concerned should you be about the nutrition? Unless you have an allergy or something? It's candy. It ain't supposed to be nutritious. You eat it because it's fun. End of story.

What if you start scoring fruits and vegetables based on a "healthiness" index? And some particularly picky people decide that, I dunno, grapefruit gets a "10" so it's the only fruit they're ever going to eat again? That's backward. Anything that might discourage dietary variety is going to be counterproductive.

I have a feeling this nutritional index might be too vague to be much good. Perhaps consumers should be more educated about the basics of nutrition, rather than relying on some black-box index to do it for them.

@supercheap: I really don't think we need it. But I think there is a lot of money to be made and fame to be had by scaring the crapola out of a very privileged population.

@supercheap: "It seems like a huge segment of the world manages to eat in a reasonably healthy way without pages of nutrition data on every single thing they consume"

Yeah, but does most of the world have the same amount of choices of prepared and packaged food that we have? If you make food only from scratch you're going to end up eating much more healthily.

@JIM THOME'S SELF_CLEANING OVEN: Exactly, it'd be nice if more people lived that way...but it just seems like we're going to get to a point where nutrition information is plastered all over everything we buy, and yet we'll STILL eat a lot of crap and expect a way to do that without repercussions. We've had labeling for years, and still we're just growing bigger.

Guess what? WE KNOW!

We know that Twinkies are bad for us. Doesn't matter. They're nummy. Cheeseburgers? Junk. Doesn't matter. Cola? Liquid Candy. Wait... Make that fabulous liquid candy.

Labels aren't the answer. WE (collectively) DON'T CARE! We're like functional alcoholics. We know the facts but aren't affected enough to change.
.
People say we need health labels on fast food. Nope. What we really need are full-length mirrors on the doors.

@witeowl: word

@ Witeowl and others who consistently argue this tired and completely false point: some people don't actually know. For example, a lot of people have repeatedly told me that I should stop drinking soda and start drinking juice. They're completely the same nutritionally: a giant glass of sugar. Especially since most of the juices are made with artificial flavors and have nothing to do with actual fruit. You mentioned fast food, so I'll assume that you know that McDonald's chicken nuggets have just as many fat grams and calories as a burger, and that some of the sizes of fruit and yogurt parfaits are just as bad as their sundaes. There are so many facts like this that people are completely unaware of. A lot of people are in denial, but knowledge is the first step to correcting the problem. I get so tired of people arguing against something that sure, a lot of people won't care about, but many other will actually benefit from.

Every notice how "easy to read" means "for swindling dummies"? I can parse my own nutrition labels, thanks.

@nardo218: That may be true, but how many people really know the difference between Saturated fat, Monounsaturated Fat, Polyunsaturated fat, etc?

The truth of the matter is, that the 'easier' labels are a good idea on the simple principal that those of us who don't know what everything on the label is and does can sit there and comprehend a bit more quickly.

For the mother with two kids in tow, trying to get home and make dinner for everyone before it gets too late, it could be invaluable.

I'm not paying any more for these new labels... neither are you. Why complain?

This sounds like a good idea to me - especially since it's voluntary. Luckily, there's a Wegman's near me.

I'm a guy, so I don't "grocery shop" as much as I "grocery get" - I hate having to choose between 50 different types of tomato sauce.

Sure, I can compare the current labels - but that takes too much time for me
(oh, less fat...but more sugar...this one's better than the other two...but more sodium)

If there's a single number "health" score (as long as I trust the scoring system), it only makes my shopping that much easier.

Yes, I know that crackers are better than twinkies for a snack, but which of the 30 kinds of crackers are best, etc...

I personally don't think these should be voluntary. I am very big on proper labeling of food.

As consumers, our money goes into all companies we buy from (obviously) and they owe it to us to be honest. I have a right to know what every ingredient in my food is. I have a right to not have to guess what "natural flavoring" means. We aren't there yet as far as labeling but I think this type (kind mentioned in article) is a great step.

I know that some people say "well this is healthy and this is obviously not". I guess some people haven't been out grocery shopping and seen peoples' carts full of frozen pizza, chicken nuggets, bacon, all sugary cereals, not one fresh bit of produce, etc. and on top of that a toddler drinking soda or Hawaiian Punch. I see it almost every time I go shopping.

Maybe with really easy-to-read labels, people who don't think about it otherwise will be forced to at least *look* at it.

@Catperson: You're absolutely right about the fruit juice. w.r.t. insulin production (i.e. what creates fat) your body can't tell sugar from apple concentrate from HFCS. The only benefit of fruit juice is it may have some extra vitamins that soda doesn't have and it lacks some of the other bad additives.

In general you can't go wrong simply reading ingredients lists. Avoid foods that include trans fat ("partially hydrogenated"), corn syrup, MSG ("monosodium glutamate", "hydrolyzed vegetable protein"), and basically anything that doesn't sound like it should be in food.

Puhlease.

If it has to be put in a bag at the store, it's nutritous. If it's in a box or can, turn over the box or can, look at the calories, fat, fiber and sodium and make sure it doesn't contain high fructose corn syrup in the first five indgredients. That's pretty much all you need to see to know if something is nutritious. We don't need a FICO score for our food.

@witeowl: Full length mirrors on the doors! I love it!

Maybe scales too, like those roadside signs that flash your speed. They have proven that those make people slow down more than just about anything else.

As a manufacturer I applaud the move. Making it 'Voluntary' at first is the right way to go in my view. I have already invested quite a bit in labels for our top-selling products.