Companies choose the serving size used to calculate nutritional information on their products, making it hard for consumers to compare nutritional value.Fred Lum/The Globe and Mail
Health Canada is considering major changes to nutrition labels on food, such as requiring companies to cite uniform serving sizes for similar products, to give confused consumers a better understanding of what they're eating.
That prospect arose as Health Minister Leona Aglukkaq unveiled a new initiative Friday to help shoppers understand the nutrition facts panel on packaged foods and beverages, which states how much fat, sugar, fibre and other nutrients a product contains. The campaign, which will include new messages on food packages, is designed to educate consumers about the "per cent daily value" column on nutrition labels.
"One of the best ways to improve health is to improve our diet, and a healthier diet starts with a greater awareness of the quantity and quality of the food we eat, especially packaged foods," Ms. Aglukkaq said.
But the new program is just the first step in a wider review of nutrition labelling taking place at Health Canada, according to Hasan Hutchinson, the department's director general of the office of nutrition policy and promotion.
Under rules introduced in 2003, the federal government requires food companies to put nutrition facts tables on nearly all prepackaged foods, which must include a suggested serving size, the amount of fat, calories, sodium, protein and nutrients in each serving, as well as the per cent daily value.
But almost as soon as they were introduced, health experts and consumer advocates slammed the nutrition labels for being confusing and even misleading to consumers. And a series of focus groups commissioned earlier this year on behalf of Health Canada confirmed this confusion.
One of the biggest problems with the nutrition-facts panel is that companies choose the serving size used to calculate nutritional information. As a result, various brands of similar food products don't use uniform measurements, making it hard for consumers to compare nutritional value.
For instance, a serving size of original All-Bran cereal is half a cup, while original Cheerios is one cup.
This also means a consumer reading a nutrition label may see that a product only contains five grams of fat, 100 calories and 200 milligrams of sodium per serving, without realizing the serving size is a fraction of what will actually be consumed.
The serving size used on regular VH soya sauce, for instance, is one tablespoon, which contains 1,160 milligrams of sodium, but many consumers would use more than that on their food. Similarly, the serving size on Kraft fat-free Italian dressing is one tablespoon, which contains 240 milligrams of sodium, even though many consumers would likely put a few tablespoons on their salad, consuming more sodium than they may realize.
Another problem with nutrition labels that was singled out in last summer's report from the federally appointed Sodium Working Group is that the amount used to calculate the per cent daily value of sodium is too high.
Health Canada recommends Canadians between ages 9 and 50 consume 1,500 milligrams of sodium a day. But the amount of sodium used by food manufacturers to calculate nutrition labels is 2,400 milligrams - higher than the "upper tolerable limit," the maximum daily amount that can be consumed without the risk of developing health problems.
Dr. Hutchinson, who is also chair of the Sodium Working Group, said the issue is "something that we are actively looking at" as part of Health Canada's wider review of nutrition labelling. He added that the department is exploring other changes, most notably the introduction of uniform serving sizes on similar food products.
As part of the new "per cent daily value" education campaign, Health Canada is launching a major media effort and has created a new website to help consumers understand the nutrition facts panel. There will also be educational messages on food packages, which is being done through collaboration with Food and Consumer Products of Canada, an industry group representing food companies across the country.