Nutrition labeling: energy values of foods and fat substitutes

The Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act requires the listing of all food ingredients on the label. However, until this year, nutrition labeling for most foods was not required. The Nutrition Labeling and Education Act, passed by the US Congress in November 1990, requires nutrition labeling (on the package or at the site of purchase) of virtually all foods packaged after May 8, 1994. (A law was passed by Congress and signed by the President of the United States on May 26, 1994, that delayed applicability of the Nutrition Labeling and Education Act until after August 8, 1994, for certain products whose labels were printed before May 8, 1994, and for which there was supporting documentation that after August 8, 1994, the product labels would be in compliance.) Prominent among the nutrition information required is labeling of the total energy content of food and the energy content derived from fat. In Title 21, Code of Federal Regulations, five methods are specified for determining the energy content of foods. The US Food and Drug Administration expects also to include specific food factors (digestibility coefficients) in food additive and GRAS (generally recognized as safe) listings for calculating the energy values of novel foods and ingredients.