FOR the nutritionally conscious food shopper, a stroll down the supermarket aisle has become the visual equivalent of a frenetic day at the carnival: With each visit, new nutritional claims leap from boxes and packaging to hawk their products' healthful attributes, a cacophony of urgent and eye-catching messages.
"Sensible Solution!" cry the packages of cookies, lunch meats and mac 'n' cheese. "Approved bestlife!" calls the reduced-fat mayonnaise. "3-a-Day!" sings the tub of yogurt. "Whole Grain," declares a yellow stamp bearing the image of a bountiful sheaf of wheat. Even the venerable American Heart Assn. is contributing to the din, its distinctive "Heart Check Mark" calling out from the labels of breakfast bars, canned soups and frozen chicken nuggets.
The number of such appeals grows yearly. The "Med Mark," a new label due to appear on packaging this summer, is expected to tout products that would be part of the Mediterranean diet, thought to be the key to longer life and lower heart disease and cancer rates among populations that live along the Mediterranean Sea.
Now some nutrition researchers and advocates are crying: Enough.
They're calling for the jumble of private icons, graphics and categories to be replaced with a single, FDA-sanctioned certification program. The result would be a simple, recognizable standard, such as red/yellow/green lights, that would give consumers an authoritative assessment of whether a food product should be a regular feature of a healthful diet.
The proliferation of nutritional programs, symbols and registries is "well-meaning" but has become a formula for confusion even for nutrition-savvy consumers, says Michael Jacobson, executive director of the Washington, D.C.-based Center for Science in the Public Interest and the author of the new proposal.
The proposal is endorsed by the chairman of the Senate Agriculture Committee as well as by seven leading nutrition researchers. One of them is Dr. Walter Willett, professor of epidemiology and nutrition at Harvard University's School of Public Health, who should know his way around a "Nutrition Facts" panel: He spearheaded the recent requirement that food labels list trans fat content.
Yet even he, he says, is sometimes led astray by packaging labels that accentuate a product's positive attributes without owning up to its nutritional shortfalls. An example: He recently took home a loaf of whole wheat bread with an official-looking symbol, only to find it packed with sodium. "It's challenging, even for someone who is well aware of the issues and who cares lots about them," he says. "You can be misled."
