What are ‘healthy’ foods? The FDA updates the labeling terms

The Food and Drug Administration on Thursday updated the definitions of the term “healthy” for labeling on foods, a move that reflected changes in nutrition and that tightened limits on saturated fat, sugar and salt in food that could be sold under that claim.

The effort, while seemingly an inconsequential update to a 30-year-old term, set off a veritable food fight of lobbying over which foods made the cut and whether the FDA would violate First Amendment protections in trying to define “healthy.”

The FDA said Thursday that its policy, outlined in a final rule, was meant to “empower consumers” by helping them quickly spot nutritious food at the grocery store. The text of the rule said it was part of the agency’s work “to help reduce the burden of diet-related chronic diseases.”

“It’s critical for the future of our country that food be a vehicle for wellness,” Dr. Robert Califf, the FDA commissioner, said in a statement. “Improving access to nutrition information is an important public health effort the FDA can undertake to help people build healthy eating patterns.”

The 318-page rule sets forth highly specific guidelines around what food manufacturers can label “healthy” or other terms, like “healthful” or “healthiest.” For instance, a 50-gram serving of a dairy product must contain no more than 5% of a person’s maximum recommended daily sugar level and 10% of a person’s daily salt and saturated fat limit. Similar standards would apply to fruits, grains, vegetables, meat and other foods. The new definition would include some processed and packaged foods and several items previously excluded from the definition of “healthy,” such as nuts, seeds, salmon, some oils and water.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who is meeting with lawmakers this week to shore up support for his upcoming confirmation hearings to become secretary of the nation’s top health agency, campaigned for President-elect Donald Trump on a message of making the nation healthier through more nutritious food. He criticized the food industry, saying it was poisoning children with artificial additives and ultra-processed foods.

While the FDA’s new rule is an incremental change that will not require any changes in food production, the effort offers a sobering preview for how difficult even small changes to the food supply can be in Washington and the headwinds Kennedy may face from the food and agriculture industries. The rule itself would not be immune from congressional or executive branch meddling, given how late in the Biden administration it was issued.

“If the incoming administration is truly serious about making Americans eat healthier, then they should embrace the power of food labeling,” said Peter Lurie, a former FDA official and the executive director of the nonprofit Center for Science in the Public Interest, a nonprofit advocacy group.

He said the rule was voluntary in the sense that companies would not need to meet the standards unless they wanted to market food as “healthy.”

In general, the FDA’s updated rule follows the nutritional science and advice of the nation’s Dietary Guidelines of 2020-2025, which federal agencies issue every five years. A committee of nutrition experts is working on draft guidelines for the next set, which is expected to be released at the end of next year.

Public health advocates saw the rule as an important change.

“The updated definition should give consumers more confidence when they see the ‘healthy’ claim while grocery shopping,” Nancy Brown, CEO of the American Heart Association, said in a statement Thursday. “And we hope it will motivate food manufacturers to develop new, healthier products that qualify to use the ‘healthy’ claim.”

In 2023, as the proposal was moving forward, the Consumer Brands Association, which represents food makers and others, aired concerns. It called the proposal “overly restrictive” and said it would disqualify a vast majority of nutrient-dense packaged foods.

“We do not believe that FDA sufficiently market tested its proposed regulatory framework to determine how it would work in practice,” the group said in a comment on the proposal.

The association also raised free-speech concerns about the proposal, saying it would violate the First Amendment “by prohibiting truthful, non-misleading labeling claims in an unjustified manner.”

The FDA’s rule — which is meant to take effect in early 2028 — said that about 5% of foods were currently labeled “healthy.” The estimated benefit of the changes over 20 years is about $686 million, the rule says, based on a calculation using a healthy eating score and death data.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.