Food fight: FDA wants to redefine ‘healthy,’ but manufacturers resist

Healthy Choice frozen meals and entrees have been a go-to for people in a rush who want to eat something convenient but seemingly good for them.

The brand represents 60% of sales of all products labeled “healthy” in the market today, with more than 200 million meals sold last year.

But the Food and Drug Administration’s efforts to update the definition of “healthy” may drive parent company Conagra Brands in another direction entirely.

“It is our strong conviction that if FDA’s proposal is adopted in its current form, companies like Conagra will have every incentive to shift their innovation efforts away from products labeled as ‘healthy’ and towards less healthy options,” the company wrote in comments to the FDA last month.

The remarks came in response to the FDA’s announcement in September that it planned to change the rules for nutrition labels that go on the front of food packages to indicate they are “healthy.”

Dozens of other food manufacturers and industry organizations have joined Conagra in claiming the new standards are draconian and will result in most current food products not making the cut or in unappealing product reformulations.

Under the proposal, manufacturers can label their products “healthy” only if they contain a meaningful amount of food from at least one of the main food groups such as fruit, vegetable or dairy, as recommended by federal dietary guidelines. They must also adhere to specific limits for certain nutrients, such as saturated fat, sodium and added sugars.

It’s the added sugar limit that has been the sticking point for many food executives. The FDA’s previous rules put limits around saturated fat and sodium but did not include limits on added sugars.

The Consumer Brands Association, representing 1,700 major food companies, wrote a 54-page comment to the FDA in which it stated the proposed rule was overly restrictive and would result in a framework that would automatically disqualify a vast majority of packaged foods.

“We believe ... that FDA’s restrictive approach to added sugars content in foods described as healthy is unwarranted and outside FDA’s authority given the lack of scientific consensus on the relationship between sugar intake and diet-related disease,” the association stated.

The proposed rule, if finalized, they said, would violate the First Amendment rights of food companies and could harm bothconsumers and manufacturers.

So, how big an effect would these new rules have on consumers’ behavior? Fewer than 1% of consumers would change their buying habits, the FDA estimates.