Sometimes the best ideas are backed by facts and easy to implement. Guess what, this is one. I like giving these legislative ideas titles on occasion. The True Fat Labeling Act would mandate labels to show fat content based on calories not weight or portion size. Why you might ask? Well, for one the current system is terribly deceptive. So deceptive it should be illegal. It fools people into thinking they might be eating something healthy when they definitely are not. The weight or portion size of the food you eat tells you almost nothing about its nutritional value.
Take for instance low-fat milk. Based on weight, this product is only 2% fat. They get this by taking regular milk and adding water. Yummy. Also, consider all food is eaten for its calories or units of energy, not how heavy it feels on your stomach. The additional water doesn’t give you much in calories and as a consequence you end up with about 40% of all your calories coming from fat in the 2% milk. Interesting isn’t it.
Now take a burger. Based on weight you might have 10% fat or 90% fat-free. Sound great right? Who could pass up a low-fat burger? What this labeling doesn’t tell you is that out of all the nutrition (calories) in that burger you are getting probably 60% of it from fat. Not fun. Deceptive labeling such as this is one of the reasons why we have an obesity epidemic in America. Would I eat the low-fat burger? Of course (as long as it was a veggy burger, but that is another story). But, would I eat the burger made of 60% fat? No. It is about what will make you buy that low-fat product, not whether or not it is in your best interest to do so.
We have a right to clear concise non-deceptive information. We have a right to make knowledgeable choices. Why wouldn’t someone support the True Fat Labeling Act (love this titles)?
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