The proposed new Nutrition Facts labels are more helpful, more accurately reflect serving sizes and better alert consumers to less-healthy foods-at least in the 10-second span the average grocery shopper spends looking at labels. Thats the conclusion of a study by the Georgetown Institute for Consumer Research. The study showed 830 consumers the proposed label, an alternative proposal and current labels for a frozen pizza, an eight-ounce bag of chips and a 20-ounce soda. Consumers rated the new labels as proposed by the FDA earlier this year (see NewsBites, May) as more useful. They also viewed the larger serving sizes the agency is proposing for many foods as more realistic; most said, for example, that they eat more than 12 chips and drink more than eight ounces of soda per serving-the amounts currently listed as a single serving. Moreover, those larger serving sizes better alerted participants to the calories, saturated fat and sodium in the foods.
