Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

After 30 years, FDA overhauls guideline for the claim "healthy" on food packages

wsj.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–55 of 55 posts

Re: After 30 years, FDA overhauls guideline for the claim "healthy" on food packages

#51

Post by Jimmc414 »

jjtheblunt wrote: post #49
Jimmc414 wrote: post #42

One tangentially related example is Tic Tacs, which contain 94.5% sugar[0] but can legally advertise as "0 sugar" because the serving size is less than 0.5 grams under FDA labeling rules.[1] [2] [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tic_Tac [1] https://www.accessdata.fda.gov/scripts/cdrh/cfdocs/cfcfr/CFR... [2] https://i.imgur.com/9p6dMgD.jpg

i believe the ingredients list is ordered by amount of ingredient, so it's a quick scan to see if sugar (of whatever sort) is an added ingredient, despite the nonsense of numerical truncation being allowed in grams.

but it is easy to miss. see [2] referenced image in the parent.

Re: After 30 years, FDA overhauls guideline for the claim "healthy" on food packages

#53

Post by naming_the_user »

If whole milk, chicken, beef etc aren’t on the list then their definition of healthy is nonsense.

For some reason people seem obsessed with overcomplicating their diets. You don’t need to subsist on a diet of rabbit food to be healthy, you just don’t want to be constantly having deep fried crap, donuts, Doritos, etc, and definitely not 3000 cal a day unless you’re an athlete or heavy manual worker.

It baffles me that we’ve had to invent a whole term “ultra processed” to describe things that a generation or two would just be called junk food.

Re: After 30 years, FDA overhauls guideline for the claim "healthy" on food packages

#54

Post by Rendello »

Jimmc414 wrote: post #42

One tangentially related example is Tic Tacs, which contain 94.5% sugar[0] but can legally advertise as "0 sugar" because the serving size is less than 0.5 grams under FDA labeling rules.[1] [2] [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tic_Tac [1] https://www.accessdata.fda.gov/scripts/cdrh/cfdocs/cfcfr/CFR... [2] https://i.imgur.com/9p6dMgD.jpg

This came up on Reddit recently:

> So I'm absolutely fucking obsessed with the Fruit Adventure flavor of Tic-Tacs. [...] I've been buying them in bulk, where each container has 200 candies each, and they come in bulk packs of 12 containers. I tend to eat them by the handful while I'm working or gaming, so in a day I can easily slam through 1-2 containers.

> Over the past year, I found that I gained about 40lbs, and nothing about my eating habits had changed as far as I was aware. I told my doctor about it and she was a bit worried, so she had me do a bunch of bloodwork to see if there was a reason why I gained so much weight in a short period of time. Everything came back normal. She referred me to see a weight loss doctor who would also have me see a dietician.

> I had been working with the dietician for a few months now, and we have me keep a food log. I had a virtual visit with her today and during it, I was fiddling around with an empty container to keep my hands busy. She saw it and asked where I got such a large container from, so I told her about it and how I eat 1-2 of those per day. She asked why those weren't on my food tracker and I said it was because they're 0 calories so they wouldn't count.

Reddit OP goes on to discover what you posted. One of the comments in the thread was:

> I just finished a diploma in a medical field, we were warned about people like you OP. I wish I was joking.

https://old.reddit.com/r/tifu/comments/1cck4u8/tifu_by_not_t...

Re: After 30 years, FDA overhauls guideline for the claim "healthy" on food packages

#55

Post by autoexec »

naming_the_user wrote: post #53

If whole milk, chicken, beef etc aren’t on the list then their definition of healthy is nonsense. For some reason people seem obsessed with overcomplicating their diets. You don’t need to subsist on a diet of rabbit food to be healthy, you just don’t want to be constantly having deep fried crap, donuts, Doritos, etc, and definitely not 3000 cal a day unless you’re an athlete or heavy manual worker. It baffles me that…

We've had to invent the term because "junk food" isn't well defined or understood. A lot of ultra processed food wouldn't be considered junk food by many people and some junk food like cakes and pastries might be considered processed but still not be considered "ultra processed".

As a new term, the definition of "ultra processed" is still being narrowed down and clarified, but at least it isn't saddled with several decades of past definitions or ideas of what junk food is or isn't.

It's become clear that ultra processed foods have major negative impacts on health in ways other foods don't. My guess is that as research into ultra processed foods continues we'll eventually end up with even more new terms to drill down into specific types of foods, production methods, and even marketing practices that are harmful/unhealthy.

Post reply on HN