Can Food Labels Trick You Into Poor Nutrition?

by WiredBerries Editors — October 16, 2007

University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee (UWM) researchers found recently that food labels confuse consumers. Consequently, they often don't get nutritional information they need. Current food labeling leads to under-consumption of calcium, for example. But the good news is that those who were taught how to translate the information reversed the trend. Researchers believe the same holds true for other beneficial nutrients.

For example, a woman at risk for osteoporosis is told by her doctor to get 1200 to 1500 milligrams of calcium every day. But when she looks at the Nutrition Facts panel on a carton of yogurt or a jug of milk, she finds that calcium is only listed by "Percent Daily Value" (%DV). So, how does she convert that to milligrams?

If she's like most of us...she can't. But not only that, neither can most doctors, the study found. "This is particularly worrisome with at-risk populations such as those over 55 years of age, or pregnant or lactating women," says Laura A. Peracchio, a professor at the UWM who helped conduct the study.

Teenage girls also need extra calcium, she points out, and a study reported this summer in The New York Times suggests that consuming high levels of vitamin D and calcium may offer some protection against the most aggressive kinds of breast cancer. Peracchio points out that the difficulty in translating the Nutrition Facts panel on food products goes beyond calcium and makes it difficult to know if you're getting enough of other essential nutrients as well.

"The challenge of using the Nutrition Facts panel to make adequate food consumption decisions is similar for other nutrients that consumers often do not consume enough of." The results of the study were so compelling that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has now added information to its Web site on how to translate %DV to milligrams.