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Burkey Belser, designer of the nutrition facts label, has died
- atleastoptimal 3y agoI'm eating exactly 2000 calories today in his honor.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- xnx 3y agoThe current nutrition label design was a huge step forward from what preceded it, but is overdue for a reevaluation. As understanding of health effects have of different foods have changed, so should the information hierarchy displayed on the label. The ratios of fats, carbohydrates, and protein should be instantly visually glanceable. Fiber content should be much more prominent. The reduction in fiber is probably one of the most salient characteristics of "processed" food.
- TylerE 3y agoThe biggest complaint I have is that anything sold in a non-resealable single-serving container should be treated as one serving, regardless of any standardized size. So for instance a can of soda should be totaled on the full 12oz, not the 8oz serving size that no one actually consumes.
- psygn89 3y agoI remember looking at the nutrition label on my popcorn box. It looked something like https://i.redd.it/9elpy3nck0x61.jpg https://i.redd.it/9elpy3nck0x61.jpg. It would be nice if in addition to their measured nutrition they just have a simplified "1 bag = ...".
- hombre_fatal 3y agoI’d like to see per 100g standardized in a second column like it is done in Mexico so that you can actually compare products regardless of what they say their serving size is (first column).
- TylerE 3y agoThat makes way too much sense to ever actually happen.
- hdhdhsjsbdh 3y agoWhy can something so simple and unobjectionable happen in other places but not the US? Your knee-jerk response is the same as my own, but I wonder to what extent the apathy/cynicism has become a self-fulfilling prophecy.
- TylerE 3y agoLobbyists and runaway corporate greed.
- freddie_mercury 3y agoTIL corporations in Mexico aren't greedy and there is no lobbying/corruption...
- robertlagrant 3y agoBlimey. We're just learning about the person that invented this type of labelling, in the US. And don't blame lobbyists; they should be lobbying, just as a public defender should be defending their client. The people deciding the wrong thing after all lobbying has happened are to blame, especially given they're funded by mandatory taxes.
- ryandrake 3y agoIt’s ridiculous that companies are allowed to just conjure up a unit of measurement (the Serving) out of thin air purely to confuse the public.
- bobthepanda 3y agoThere is also the rather annoying thing where you can round so a tic tac is allowed to say it has zero grams of sugar, despite being nearly all sugar.
- nostromo 3y agoThis is why there are standard sizes in the US. So you can compare products and smaller products aren’t able to advertise as low calorie.
- TylerE 3y agoBut that's exactly what they're doing! Note the "Serving Size: 1 piece (0.49g)" https://commonplacefacts.files.wordpress.com/2019/07/img_0706.jpg https://commonplacefacts.files.wordpress.com/2019/07/img_070...
- gnicholas 3y agoTrue, you can compare tic-tacs to other similar candies, and discover that they all have zero grams of sugar, apparently.
- notjulianjaynes 3y agoI noticed this insanity on a spray can of Pam the other day as well. "0" calories if you only spray it for 1/4 second.
- thfuran 3y agoYes, I've seen a can of spray oil for sale with 0 fat per serving and some 1,500 servings per container. It's ridiculous.
- tekla 3y agoif you're eating enough tic tacs for this to matter, you have bigger issues
- ramblenode 3y agoThis is the most glaring flaw of the system. The per serving amount is often arbitrary or misleading and just adds noise. I would rather know the total for everything inside the container and estimate my own serving.
- michelsedgh 3y agoI think no one has actually made a nutrition facts label here, but when you are making it, it is sooo easy to manipulate it to get what you want and in practice, most of the customers, like 85-90% of them don’t look at the serving size, they just look at how much and get deceived. I think most food companies know this deep down and use it.
- HWR_14 3y agoWhen's the last time you checked? Because the FDA did fix that issue (although it happened very recently, I believe during the pandemic). There are exceptions where the manufacturer can (a) put both the recommended servings and total package size as two columns and (b) can still use servings if the non-resealable container contains 2 or more servings (e.g. a party sized bag of chips).
- nostromo 3y agoPet peeve: switching between units. If protein is in grams, serving size should not be ounces!
- anigbrowl 3y agoThe ratios of fats, carbohydrates, and protein should be instantly visually glanceable. Not sold on this. Most people can't use ratios effective ime, and it's not obvious what 'good' or 'bad' ratios are, which means it'd mostly be ignored. I agree about fiber content. The most astounding thing to me about the existing label is that it uses metric units, a rare triumph of common sense over xenophobia.
- wnoise 3y agoBarycentric coordinates in a triangle wouldn't be a bad visualization...
- xnx 3y agoMainly my thinking is to provide some perspective to food labeling that says "high protein" (can be as little as 10g), but then has 80g of sugar.
- ramblenode 3y agoSurely more than 50% of people could figure out a pie chart if it became standard labelling.
- diziet 3y agoIT would also be great if the ingredients were somehow color coded based on some approximate population wide risk factor.
- DavidPeiffer 3y agoI understand what you're going for, and it would be helpful as a consumer. I work for a food manufacturer, and speaking only for myself as an industrial engineer, it'd be a pain to have a handful of colors added to every ingredient statement. Each color is another thing that can go wrong in manufacturing, and that quality needs to be checked against. Depending on packaging type, you might see branding slowly tend towards whatever standard colors simply because it'd simplify the packaging printing and could reduce the cost.
- knallfrosch 3y agoSuch as the Nutri-Score printed on labels in the EU? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nutri-Score https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nutri-Score
- diziet 3y agoThat's an interesting idea, but I was more interested in a per-ingredient basis. Different people have different nutritional needs, requirements and even philosophies.
- vhcr 3y agohttps://www.paho.org/en/news/29-9-2020-front-package-labeling-advances-americas https://www.paho.org/en/news/29-9-2020-front-package-labelin...
- chpatrick 3y agoI wish they had a standardized QR code format containing the nutritional data so you weren't reliant on third-party databases to scan them. If it was a compact data format it would easily fit in a small QR code.
- Eumenes 3y agoThere are different kinds of fibers as well - insoluble vs soluble fiber, soluble is generally harder to find in foods.
- pg_bot 3y agoRIP to Mr Belser. I hope that we can add nutrition labels to alcoholic beverages in the near future.
- kibwen 3y agoSame here. Beer has more calories than Coke.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- garrickvanburen 3y agoto underline your point. Looks like regular Coke has 140 calories / 12oz serving. A random sampling of my homebrew recipes (brewersfriend.com); 136 - British Golden, 163 - table saison, 215 - West Coast IPA, 307 - Imperial Stout.
- trealira 3y agoBut, to be fair, beer seems more filling than Coke. My mom has told me how, when she was in college, sometimes she'd just drink a beer instead of having a meal, because it's filling enough and has enough calories to substitute a meal.
- ClassyJacket 3y agoAnd ingredients!
- 2devnull 3y agoReinheitsgebot now!
- maroonblazer 3y ago> The Reinheitsgebot, literally "purity order", is a series of regulations limiting the ingredients in beer in Germany and the states of the former Holy Roman Empire. The best known version of the law was adopted in Bavaria in 1516 (by William IV), but similar regulations predate the Bavarian order, and modern regulations also significantly differ from the 1516 Bavarian version.[0] [0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reinheitsgebot https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reinheitsgebot
- kdottt 3y ago"The squabbling resulted in a multitude of design ideas, including pie charts, sliding graph charts, colors and even the image of the sun." Can you imagine if that's what we ended up with hahaha
- kibwen 3y agoLike the ADA, one of those things that are so good for the public health (even if imperfect) that it's amazing to think that there was a version of America where it was capable of being considered, let alone passed. Consumers need information if they're going to have any hope of making informed decisions. Trying to eat healthily in our sugary wasteland would be an insurmountable task without having this information at my fingertips.
- mk_stjames 3y agoIt is information that is so incredibly useful, and this is shown by how ubiquitous such labels became elsewhere in the world only after they were pioneered by the FDA first. People might be surprised by this, but as far as I can tell such Nutritional Facts labelling didn't start being required on packaging in Europe until the late 90's, several years after the full mandate in the US and nearly a decade after the original proposal in the US.
- thfuran 3y agoToo bad we haven't updated our labeling laws to match theirs. Nutrition facts based on a consistent amount of material are much more useful than the hodgepodge we get.
- jsmith45 3y agoOur law says that the portion sizes must be the amount that people typically consume at once. Which conceptually makes a lot of sense. Nutrition facts per 100g is conceptually nice, but if the amount people typically eat at once is not 100g, then that means more math. Furthermore, in the US most recipes are not done by weight, so to be useful for recpie calulation, we would need to use say per 8 fl oz for liquids, a per The problem with the US system is more that the FDA implements it based on survey results for categories of food, and only occasionally update the value. This means that food that falls in one category, but that consumers treat like it falls in a different one can get laughable portion sizes, and the same thing happens when the values become out of date. Manufacturers don't really get a lot of discretion on choosing the listed serving size for most foods, with only a few places where the rules let a manufacturer choose (like for discrete units that take more than half and less than two thirds of the RACC, where the manufacturer can choose between a service size of one or two units). There are cases where manufacturers would prefer to list a different size (usually larger) because they know it is more accurate representation of what people consume, but they can't. This is hardly the only issue. Some of the rounding rules can be rather absurd, meaning that is is not always possible to get accurate information for larger sizes by simply multiplying the values on the nutrition facts label.
- walterbell 3y agoIn turn, the nutrition label has inspired cybersecurity transparency labels for devices. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37392676 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37392676 > [FCC] cybersecurity labeling program would help consumers compare IoT devices and make informed purchasing decisions, drive consumers toward purchasing devices with greater security, incentivize manufacturers to meet higher cybersecurity standards to meet market demand, and encourage retailers to market secure devices. The proposed IoT label would offer a trusted, government-backed symbol for devices that comply with IoT cybersecurity standards.
- toomuchtodo 3y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burkey_Belser https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burkey_Belser
- jrockway 3y ago> The Agriculture Department, for instance, was concerned the label would cause consumers to eat less meat This sort of thinking has probably killed more people than any war we've ever fought. If Americans didn't eat much meat, it likely wouldn't be the end of the world. But, because of special interests, here we are today.
- csharpminor 3y agoI knew someone at Department of Agriculture who tried to organize meatless Mondays for the employee cafeteria. Needless to say special interests had beef with that and shut them down.
- NoZebra120vClip 3y agoIf they hadn't been afraid to hold Abstinence Fridays, then it might have been workable.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- NoZebra120vClip 3y agoHis casket comes with a secret decoder ring inside
- Noumenon72 3y agoSo pro consumer. They need to copy this to let people compare apartments: decibel level, heating costs, and crime rate.
- d4rkp4ttern 3y agoOn the subject of nutrition labels — the thing I always look for is Added Sugar, and even if it’s zero , I look at the ingredients list and find things like stevia extract and erythritol which have at best unclear implications health-wise. There should be a law saying these sugar related facts should be printed very clearly upfront in large font so they are not damn hard to find. End rant.
- ekimekim 3y agoMy bigger issue is when drinks advertise "less sugar" but include these things, and I have no clue until I take a drink then have to throw the rest away because it tastes disgusting.
- d4rkp4ttern 3y agoYes stevia is the worst.
- alexjplant 3y ago> things like stevia extract and erythritol which have at best unclear implications health-wise Stevia is a natural sweetener that has been generally recognized as safe by the United States. Tens of thousands of studies conducted in Japan demonstrate its safety and they've used it as a dietary supplement for decades. Various cancer research institutes have also ran large-scale human studies that support its safety. Do not confuse Stevia with aspartame, saccharin, and other artificial sweeteners. Stevia doesn't have the same mouthfeel as sugar and has a tendency to develop a bitter taste above a certain quantity but I attribute that to the typical American sweet tooth; I have no trouble flavoring drinks with Stevia because I prefer about half the level of sweetness that a commercial product might otherwise have.
- d4rkp4ttern 3y agoIt’s good to see these safety studies from the POV of “is it carcinogenic”, but I am also concerned whether it has the same metabolism/diabetes links as normal glucose sugar?
- knallfrosch 3y agoWhat an irony that all healthy food – whole foods such as fruit, vegetables, fresh meat, and seafood – doesn't require the label at all.
- js2 3y ago> Mr. Belser’s nutrition facts label — rendered in bold and light Helvetica type — was celebrated as a triumph of public health and graphic design when it debuted in 1994 following passage of the Nutrition Labeling and Education Act. Wait, what? 1994? If you asked me when this label appeared, I would have answered: it's been there as long as I've been alive. I would have guessed it was added sometime in the 60s. I'm nearly 52. I have no memory of food products not always having had this label. Crazy.
- jquast 3y agoThey did have nutrition labels, but they were voluntary, so you maybe did see "nutrition facts" of some kind, but they could have had any appearance or title and could make any claim deemed "truthful". https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK209859/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK209859/ > Every manufacturer should be encouraged to provide truthful nutritional information about his products to enable consumers to follow recommended dietary regimens. (WHC, 1970) > Food manufacturers were eager to respond to the consumer interest and did so in a variety of ways, often through the use of an assortment of new, undefined claims on product labels that attempted to state or imply something about the special value of the food, such as “extremely low in saturated fat,” This article contains an image of a 1987 bran flakes label, which shows calories, proteins, fat, cholesterol, vitamin content, ingredients etc., mostly the same content but without the styling of Mr. Belser's nutritional facts label https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2014/02/25/282628088/nutrition-labels-to-get-long-overdue-tweaks https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2014/02/25/282628088/nu...