A nutrition advocate seeks a better label | News | Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health

A nutrition advocate seeks a better label | News | Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health

I just know Harvard is going to miss the boat again. Neha Khandpur, SD ’16, in Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health’s Department of Nutrition is doing nutrition label activism. The article, however, concentrated on nutrients and did not address the glaring problem of caloric content vis-a-vis weight loss efforts.


The solution, which I've proposed before directly to the FDA and the USDA is to print the TOTAL caloric content of a package (no exceptions--the head of lettuce doesn't get off easy anymore). Let's elaborate on the insanity as it is practiced today and how my idea has a very good chance of fixing obesity--for those who want to lose weight and who want to do it by caloric restriction. Yes, labels as they exist today do offer some meager information and we do read them to see, for instance, how many "empty" calories the product contains; but, does it help in the least with calorie counting? No, not unless you are a glutton for punishment.


Presently, one buys numerous products, brings them home, and either shares them or keeps them for his/her special diet. If you kept them for your use only, you still have to look at the label, calculate, and measure out your portions--it is tedious and not at all conducive to weight loss. Why? Ipso facto, no one does it much.


But, in a more sane world, what if you went to the grocery store with this thought in mind, "I would like to limit my calories to 7000 a week for sure-fire rapid weight loss" and what if you then went down the aisles and saw the TOTAL calories for the food of interest printed right there on label (I'd go one step further and print it on the front of the package)? Well, you would tally up the total of all the packages and easily determine that you were within target--you now go home, and limit your consumption to those packages which you determined at the store total no more than 7000 calories.You only count calories once, consume, and buy again. What could be easier?


Difficulties arise when you have to share the food with others but for that we await the right algorithms to create a smart scale that reads the barcode, weighs the package after each use, asks for the name of the consuming individual, subtracts from his allotment and warns accordingly. That one is just begging for online funding. The algorithm could also allow you to buy extra food and warn you if your consumption was exceeding a daily average (in the above case, 1000 calories)


One other difficulty I see is that of the consumer who is incapable of limiting choices but that person has to understand that he/she could buy a great variety for the week if individual items were purchased instead of bulk. But motivation is everything here and I thought it would go smoother if you limited yourself to fewer packages and then varied their content for subsequent weeks.


BTW, can anyone explain why foods have so little nutritional content--if you are to believe the labels, of course. I don't know about you, but until I get an explanation, I'll keep on making the supplement companies rich.