Every diet is basically “eat less junk food” with a different spin on getting there. Atkins, paleo, keto. Atkins sales pitch was something like “just don’t eat sugar, you can eat what you want, and after 5 days the magic happens and you are no longer hungry” which is pretty much what happens just by getting rid of processed foods and eliminating the craving for them.
So yeah, eat eggs instead of “granola” bars. Three hard boiled medium eggs will have the same number of calories according to the nutrition label but you won’t be craving anything for a several hours after the eggs.
I am sure the labels are helpful once you are diagnosed with hypertension or are at risk for it and your doctor asks you to avoid foods with lots of sodium. I don’t think the labels are doing much to change the number of people that end up having this conversation with their doctor.
Diet soda is always a hot topic. 0 calories, but in many cases people who drink diet soda are obese. Does it mess with how your body regulates insulin? Are people reaching for diet soda because they are already overweight or have other bad eating habits? If they replace a regular soda in the afternoon with a diet soda, could they overconsume at their next meal to compensate for the loss of calories?
People don’t understand nutrition very well so we give them a # of calories on a label and tell them that 2000 is the target. The problem isn’t so much the label itself, but it sets an unrealisitic expectation that it is sufficient for someone to make good choices and creates a disincentive to learn more.
Many of the counter examples of benefits of nutrion labels you guys have provided are cases where someone has been forced to understand a food label because of a pre-existing condition like a food allergy or disease that requires using the label.
For everyone else, it seems counter productive. Now, a better answer than getting rid of them is obviously to educate people on nutrition and make the labels more useful, but lets stop pretending like what we have now is in any way effective.
Total cost (labelling) has to be compared to total cost (not labelling). This is regulatory cost being compared to reduction in healthcare costs and general health (a very difficult comparison to make).
And you pointed to sodium intakes and higher blood pressure as scenarios that point to labelling not being very effective (as they both have increased).
But you don’t have enough information to conclude that you wouldn’t be worse off (higher sodium etc) if you had no labelling today.
I totally agree it is not sufficient. I think it is necessary though.
I am not healthy, or at least as healthy as i should be. I try to buy ingriedents as much as possible. But transforming ingredients into meals and meals into diet is not easy to do well. There is still plenty of things we don’t understand about diet and the gut/brain interface, and the intestinal microbiome. I don’t think there is a simple answer to move the needle on public health.
I appreciate the thought exercise. It’s a valid discussion. But now we have the entire forum of educated people speculating about the buying/eating habits of the less educated majority.
Re: eating habits of the less educated majority…see earlier posts…many no longer have access to high quality food where a lot of them rely on what the large national chains like DG or Walmart make available in their areas. Fresh products are removed from the supply chain to increase margins at their stores, so even the consumers who prefer better options don’t even have that choice.
I have only been in a Walmart neighborhood market (their smaller footprint stores) 1 time, but i seem to remember it had a layout much like a traditional grocery store. By that i mean fruits and vegetables in the front. The closest walmart to me is a supercenter, and it has a large amount of fresh fruits and vegetables in the front as well. I’d be hesitant to put them in the same group as dollar type stores (DG/FD) in terms of healthy food availablility without statistics to back it up.
I have not been in a Walmart NM…but I see now they have replaced most of their stores with either a supercenter or NM. DG is moving towards more market like stores as well, so some progress for sure.
