The FDA Could Be Making A Big Change To Our Food Labels. Here's What We Know

The Food and Drug Administration has introduced a proposal to help Americans make healthier food choices by recommending a change that could alter prepackaged food labels as consumers know them. Your favorite cereals, snack foods, juices, and everything in between could be required to make the amount of saturated fat, sodium, and sugar front-and-center on the packaging, in addition to the nutritional information on the back where shoppers typically find it. The FDA believes this change would give consumers a straightforward approach to determining a food's healthy or unhealthy nature and could go into effect as early as 2028.

The FDA announced it was considering this new rule to align U.S. food manufacturers with other countries that already require front-of-package labels to help a shopper discern a food's sugar, fat, and salt content. Per NBC, Rebecca Buckner, the FDA's associate deputy director of human food policy, told reporters during a call, "We believe that food should be a vehicle for wellness, not a contributor of chronic disease."

This proposed labeling system could help consumers with reading nutritional labels on favorite foods more efficiently while ensuring their buying and eating habits are more in line with the 2020-2025 Dietary Guidelines for Americans,  shifting habits of purchasing some of the unhealthiest low-fat foods that find their way into grocery carts. For example, sugar is only supposed to make up 10% of an individual's daily caloric intake. This new labeling system could help a consumer keep track of this more readily, helping to combat the number of diet-related chronic diseases. There's been a bit of pushback, with some citing nutritional education being needed to make this change work and others, like the Consumer Brand Association, believing some information could confuse shoppers.

Once the rule is finalized, food makers will have three to four years to change their packaging to reflect this new requirement, which may change how your Froot Loops and Gold Fish look on those grocery shelves. However, the proposal as is does not mean it's a done deal. A four-month period allows for addendums and changes before it goes into effect.