U.S. FDA Counting Calories and Wrestling with Consumer Habits

Newswise — With much consumer interest currently focused on eliminating carbohydrates from diets and food industry interest on reducing trans fats from snacks, Lester M. Crawford, acting commissioner of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, spent time Tuesday talking about calories. Crawford appeared at the Institute of Food Technologists Annual Meeting and Food Expo, the world's largest annual food science and ingredient convention.

As his agency ponders new food label guidelines, Crawford addressed one concept under consideration that would list calorie content on food labels. Crawford said that calories could be noted more prominently than other nutrient information already listed on packaging. Crawford also said he believed the FDA would recommend that the total calories be represented as a percentage of daily allowance.

The acting commissioner also spoke to FDA's strategy for address the rise of obesity in America. He stated that the FDA's past attempts to encourage the choice of a healthy diet by authorizing certain health claims and requiring caloric and nutritional information have failed to reverse the trend.

"The public wants concrete answers [about nutrition]," he said, "but we [the FDA] have a hard time keeping up with the creativity and ingenuity of the marketers."

That's not the only struggle. Crawford noted, "one out of every two people never exercise, and some people seem proud of that. I just met a woman who said, 'I never perspire and I'm proud of that.'"

He also spoke about the Qualified Health Claim Initiative, which will rank the scientific validity of health claims from A, meaning general agreement in the scientific community, to D, which means, Crawford joked, "take this at your own risk because while some people think it's super great, they are probably the ones selling it."

On the health claims issue, Mark Kantor, Ph.D., a nutrition expert with the Institute of Food Technologists and professor at University of Maryland, explained that recent research indicates consumers do not appear to understand that B, C, and D claims refer to the scientific validity of health claims.

While acknowledging such criticisms, Crawford said, "It's been overdue for the government to do more (in this area), but we do more than all other governments in the world combined."

The Institute of Food Technologists Annual Meeting and Food Expo is the world's largest annual food science and ingredient conference, delivering comprehensive, cutting-edge research and opinion from food science-, technology-, marketing- and business-leaders. Now in it's 64th year, the IFT Annual Meeting and Food Expo attracts up to 20,000 attendees and 1,000 exhibiting companies. The convention runs through Friday.