Ask HN: What would you want to see in a nutrition facts food label?

[palidanx]

I'm the current founder of a start-up that generates FDA compliant food labels (www.quickfoodlabels). As all of you know, reading those labels are notoriously complex.

For example, I think the number of servings in a package is confusing, because you need to multiply the servings by the calories to get how many calories is in a package.

I was wondering for the HN community, what would you want to see in a nutrition facts food label?

[mlent]

I want to know whether the food is: vegan, vegetarian, dairy-free, soy-free, gluten-free, nut-free, certified organic, certified fair trade, and country of origin (and whether some ingredients are from different countries).

I don't have a problem multiplying, really. Maybe something indicating how good/bad the quantities are (e.g. green light for low unsaturated fat per serving) or something.

[thirdstation]

I'd like to see all of the nutrition information encoded in a bar code so I can scan it with my smart phone. That would make tracking my nutrition easier (provided there was also an app that could make use of that info).

You could then print that barcode on register receipts for food items ordered and on menus -- that would be awesome.

[palidanx]

Yea you really are hitting on the best case solution. What we are doing though is for whoever uses our service, we are generating qr codes for every item, so smart phone users can scan the entry and get detailed information. But that would really be limited to the restaurants which use our service.

[alexrson]

Nutrition facts labels often give misleading information about trans fats, which are quite unhealthy.

The RDA for trans fats is 2 grams. Trans fats are listed on the nutrition facts in grams and amounts less than 0.5 grams are listed as 0 (this is often advertised outside the nutrition facts label). But a serving of food with say 400mg of trans fats is actually a lot (especially if a "serving" is defined as much less than the average person actually consumes). The simple correction would be to list trans fats in milligram units instead as sodium (which has a comparable RDA) and ban the misleading phrase "0g trans fats."

This may seem nit picky but I don't think we should put up misleading numbers in the nutrition facts label.

[palidanx]

You are totally correct about this. As a developer generating these labels, I implemented the rounding rules

http://www.fda.gov/Food/GuidanceComplianceRegulatoryInformat...

and it is really mind boggling

[palidanx]

Hey hn'ers, I just want to state that with the feedback on this thread, I'll be generating some experimental labels. If anyone has any more suggestions what they want, feel free to state it here.

[mhprice]

I've tracked every calorie / nutrient I'm eating a couple different times in my life. I always wanted a barcode tied to a detailed (and downloadable) nurition summary, which others have already mentioned. I also greatly appreciated labels which reported glycemic load, inflammation factor, and provided a colored calorie triangle, like here:http://nutritiondata.self.com.

[salahxanadu]

You're right, serving size should be the package unless it is likely not to be consumed all at once.

I have been mining the USDA nutrition database lately and have found some good things. However, I wish it was more specific and stringent.

[bdevine]

The NRF index[1], which measures the nutrient density of a food.

[1] http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20368382

[snowfox]

I want to see what unnatural ingredients they put into the food and their possible harmful effects listed in the labels.

[Mankhool]

Notification for all GMO ingredients.

[kmack]

I think it'd be great to be able to see country of origin for a product and each of its ingredients

[DanBC]

kCalories per typical serving size (with the serving size listed) and kCalories per 100 g / 100 ml

[palidanx]

hmm.. for US labels, it already is kCalories per serving size with serving size listed.. but yea there is no kCalories per 100g/100mL

[gruseom]

I want to know how the food was changed by processing. For example, how much sugar did they add? Not just the total.

[palidanx]

So like a new line item drawing out something like

Naturally occurring sugars - 10g Added sugars - 20g

?

[samstave]

Date slaughtered for anything meat.

[msrpotus]

Or harvested, bottled, whatever. Freshness isn't just important for meat.

[palidanx]

That's a really good point. So far, the FDA has only managed to pass a nutrition label on meat.

[c1u]

List out all the monosaccharides contained in a serving's disaccharides & polysaccharide content.

It's so frustrating to see something like this:

    Total Carbohydrates: 75g

         Dietary fibre: 2g
    
         Sugar: 23g

... ok so what is the remaining 50g of carbs?! It makes a big difference if it's 50g of fructose or 50g of glucose (starch or lactose). Plus, what is meant by "sugar"? Is that sucrose (50%/50% fructose/glucose), HFCS (55%/45% fructose/glucose), or some other disaccharide?

[palidanx]

From the regulations (The questions page)

N16. How is total carbohydrate calculated? Answer: Total carbohydrate is calculated by subtracting the weight of crude protein, total fat, moisture, and ash from the total weight (“wet weight”) of the sample of food. 21 CFR 101.9(c)(6)

N17. Does total carbohydrate include dietary fiber? Answer: Yes. Dietary fiber must be listed as a subcomponent under total carbohydrate. 21 CFR 101.9(c)(6)

N18. What is meant by sugars on the Nutrition Facts label? Answer: To calculate sugars for the Nutrition Facts label, determine the weight in grams of all free monosaccharides and disaccharides in the sample of food. The other nutrients declared on the nutrition label are defined in 21 CFR 101.9(c). 21 CFR 101.9(c)(6)(ii)