Providing Healthy and Safe Foods As We Age Workshop Summary (2010) / Chapter Skim
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1 Introduction
1 Introduction
Pages 5-16
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Actions aimed at improving dietary choices among older adults in particular include conducting age-related risk assessments and developing educational materials and messages aimed at older adults.
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Later, a wide range of other government, academic, and industry representatives discussed the variety of ways that different stakeholders are embrac ing the challenge of improving food safety and nutrition in aging populations. • America's aging population is actually many aging populations.
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Michael Doyle discussed some of the innovative food processing technologies that have been designed to protect food and minimize contamination and other food safety problems, as well as some of the challenges that still exist. Aaron Brody described the wide range of packaging technologies designed to do the same.
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, Steven Gendel remarked that one of the challenges with differentiating among multiple aging populations is the lack of health monitoring data and the consequent inability to generate enough statistical power to make conclusions about the health conditions and needs of those varied populations. As another example, Bernadene Magnuson presented recent findings on the adverse effects of soy and curcumin and argued that many active ingredients in dietary supplements are understudied and may have unknown safety risks.
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government, industry, and the traditionally separate food safety and nutrition communities are already working together or could be working together to develop food products that meet the changing nutritional needs of older adults, devise new ways to communicate about food safety and nutrition to older adults, and tackle other pressing food safety and nutrition issues. See Chapter 7 for a more detailed summary of some of these and other topics that were highlighted in the final session of the workshop, when four distinguished panelists were asked to comment on what they considered to
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at FDA began by remarking on the necessity of accounting for aging populations when considering food safety. As such, FDA is increasingly taking aging into account when deliberating on food safety issues.
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. FDA is currently in the process of modernizing the panels Serving size information Prominence of Calorie information Daily Values FIgURE 1-1 An example of a mandatory Nutrition Facts panel, with parts of the panel currently under review by FDA highlighted, as described by Sundlof.
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Serving size information needs to be improved such that the listed serving size is actually the same as what people normally consume in one sitting, and consumers need to be educated about what serving size means. • Most people look at calorie information when seeking nutrition information, therefore FDA is working on ways to make this infor mation more prominent.
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. Sundlof pointed to the United Kingdom Food Standards Agency's voluntary traffic light system as an example of a different type of front-ofpackage labeling: symbols that provide both specific nutrition information and gradations about positive or negative levels of fat, saturated fat, salt, and sugars.2 A red light indicates a high level, an amber light a medium level, and green light a low level.
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. FDA FOOD SAFETY AND NUTRITION ACTIONS AIMED SPECIFICALLY AT AgINg POPULATIONS FDA is implementing several measures aimed specifically at improving dietary choices among older adults, including the following: • Considering age-related issues when conducting safety and risk as sessments.
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5 materials aimed at different age groups. In conclusion, Sundlof emphasized that FDA is strengthening its focus on nutrition, especially among older adults, and is making a major effort toward improving nutrition labeling so that consumers of all ages can make healthier dietary choices.
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The questioner remarked, "The best information that is on the label is not usable if it is not legible." Sundlof explained how FDA currently requires that certain Nutrition Facts panel criteria be met, for example certain information must meet a minimum font size, and FDA will be testing various font sizes and other properties of front-of-package labeling to ensure that different age groups, both older and younger populations, can read the information. He said that one of the challenges with front-of-package labeling, particularly on small packages, is that the package front is "prime real estate."
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