Food labels are on just about every packaged food you can find. But it’s OK if you rarely notice them. Today’s food labels fail to present a food’s nutritional value in clear, consistent terms that all consumers can understand. Given the importance of food choices in our lives, better labeling could go a long way in addressing some of our most critical health issues.
The Food and Drug Administration is just getting started on the process of considering a new food label to stamp on our grub. Back in May, we got a head start: We asked you to redesign the nutrition label with the help of UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism’s News21 reporting fellows.
Thanks to everyone who sent in designs. We were blown away by the responses! Now it’s time to tell the feds which labels really work. Please weigh in on your favorite user-submitted label in the comments, or vote on the entries at News21’s site here.
And stay tuned: We’ll be announcing the winners with the help of a talented team of writers, nutritionists, and designers: Michael Pollan, author of Food Rules; Robert H. Lustig, M.D., professor of clinical pediatrics at the University of California, San Francisco; Michael Jacobson of the Center for Science in the Public Interest; Andrew Vande Moere of Information Aesthetics; and Laura Brunow Miner of Pictory.
