Here’s another one of those occasional queries from Kerry Trueman. This one, posted at Huffington, is about FDA regulations for labeling sugars.
Trueman: I’ve just begun to sink my teeth into Michael Moss’s extraordinary food industry exposé, Salt Sugar Fat: How the Food Giants Hooked Us, a book you’ve rightly lauded as a “breathtaking feat of reporting.” As Moss points out, the FDA is happy to give us guidelines on how much salt and fat to include in our daily diets, but–as a glance at any nutritional label shows–they’ve declined to make any recommendation at all about sugar.Does this mean that:(a) It’s OK to eat as much sugar as you like, or:(b) There may be an unsafe level of sugar consumption, but the FDA just doesn’t have the resources to figure out what that level is, or:(c) The FDA knows how much sugar we can eat without harming our health, but the food industry won’t let them tell us.How is the average American supposed to interpret this absence of information?
Nestle: Whoa.
Slow down. Let’s back up a minute. The FDA sets nutritional standards
for food labels, but the Institute of Medicine (IOM) sets nutritional
standards for dietary intake. To understand what’s happening with the
FDA and food labels, we have to talk about what the IOM used to call the
Recommended Dietary Allowances (RDAs) but now calls Dietary Reference
Intakes (which, confusingly, include RDAs and other standards, such as
Upper Limits).
In 2002, the IOM set standards
for total carbohydrates–sugars and starches (which are converted to
sugars in the body). In its review of the evidence, the IOM set the RDA
for total carbohydrates at 130 grams a day (roughly 4 ounces) to meet
the needs of the brain for fuel. This amount is much less than typically
consumed by adults.
As for sugars, the IOM noted
that the average intake of sugars among adolescent males was 143 grams
per day, and that the heaviest users were consuming 208 grams per
day–much more than the amount of total carbohydrate needed.
Since sugars are not required
nutrients, the IOM could not set an RDA. And although it did not have
enough evidence to set an Upper Limit, the IOM suggested that the
maximum level of intake of added sugars (as opposed to those naturally
present in foods) should be a whopping 25% or less of calories.
Americans typically consume around 20% of calories from added sugars.
Taken at face value, the IOM suggestion made it sound as if current
intake levels were just fine. The sugar industry happily viewed 25% as a
recommendation, not a maximum.
Before the sugar industry got
after them, many countries recommended an upper level of sugar intake at
10% of calories. That’s what the U.S. Pyramid did in 1992.
The sugar industry does not like
the 10% recommendation. It means, for example, that just one of Mayor
Bloomberg’s 16-ounce sodas takes care of recommended sugar intake for
the day.
Robert Lustig, who is largely
concerned about what too much fructose does to us, thinks that 50 grams
of sugar (sucrose or HFCS) is a reasonable Upper Limit for most people.
This would provide 25 grams of fructose, which the body can handle with
relative ease. What’s interesting about his
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