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- THE WEEK, Page 23HEALTH & SCIENCEWhat's Really in That Bag of Potato Chips?
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- New labeling rules will end confusion over food contents
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- Having trouble figuring out the food lable on your cereal?
- Low-fat yogurt? Cranberry juice? Relax. Help is on the way. The
- Bush Administration has unveiled new rules that should help
- solve the mysteries of what packaged foods really contain.
- Finalized after weeks of wrangling between the Departments of
- Agriculture and Health and Human Services, the 4,000 pages of
- regulations spell out guidelines for labeling the amount of
- calories, fat and nutrients in everything from potato chips to
- cans of soup. This boon to the consumer doesn't come cheap. By
- May of 1994, more than 270,000 food labels must be changed,
- costing the industry about $2 billion. But, it will be worth
- the trouble, says HHS Secretary Dr. Louis Sullivan, "The Tower
- of Babel in food labels has come down, and American consumers
- are the winners." Still, the new labeling system won't tell
- shoppers how to create a healthy diet. That's one thing they
- will have to figure out for themselves.
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