Nutrition Labels
The issue of nutrition labels has been an international concern when it comes to illegal food products in the market by the cartels. The establishment of the Nutrition Labeling and Education Act in the 1970s has been essential until date because it sets standards to nutrition labels within the globe (Chapman-Novakofski, 2018). This Act provides an understanding of the legal framework for nutrition labeling, as well as the conditions for compliance with these standards by foods companies. Nutrition labeling is important, and food companies use it to sensitize the consumers towards adopting healthy and effective eating habits to avoid health complications like much sugar and lower or high-fat complications. Hence, public health personnel are ever concerned with legal labels on every food consumed in the market.
It is not all about labeling the foods, but also about educating the public on both the importance of the labels and how to read, understand and interpret the labels. The consumers ought to be educated on how to use the nutrition labels in determining the ingredients and diet elements in the foods they consume (Devi, 2017). Hence, this helps them to know how to integrate different foods for diet balance and to improve their health and lifestyle. With proper use of nutrition labels, the cases of obesity within the globe could be prevented. Consumers should first check the labels of the processed and packaged foods before purchasing them from the stores (Etingoff, 2014). Therefore, it is evident still that nutrition labeling issues are still a concern to be addressed.
Lack of transparency in nutrition labelling negatively affects consumers’ food selection. Nutrition labels contain the nutrition content of food for the purpose of guiding consumers on the food to select. Some nutrition labels by some food companies in the world mislead consumers on the food nutrition content, which adversely affects consumers. Consumers rely only on the labelling found on the foods, and therefore wrong nutrition labels direct consumers to purchase wrong foods (Mhurchu, 2018). Some consumers desire to reduce weight and therefore, they are advised by their health care providers to consume foods with low-fat content. Most food labels in the world do not provide full information on the nutrition content of a specific food. People with a need to reduce weight should consume foods that require the use of high amounts of energy during digestion. However, the amount of energy used during digestion of a certain food is not included in food labels. Failure to include the digestion cost on food labels makes consumers consume foods that produce opposite effects on their bodies. Hence, research needs to be conducted on what should be done to improve the transparency on nutrition labels.
Solving the issue of nutritional labels is essential to the general health of individuals. First, when proper and effective labels are used, then it means that illegal, unhealthy products will not be in the market. Again, with the nutrition labels, consumers will be sensitized on getting the best combination of foods for their health and lifestyle, hence reducing cases of nutritional diseases and cardiovascular diseases. Therefore, this research is essential in assessing the nutrition labels and its importance in human nutrition.
The Meatless Monday Proposal
What could be simpler than a chicken sandwich? Take a bloody chicken breast, roll it in frying powder, sink it into the oily deep-fry machine, wait a few minutes as the skin become drenched in grease, add a few mixed seasonings, and stick it on a soggy bun. It is a typical American operation that happens uncountable times a day in fast food chains all around the country. Meats like chicken, pork, and beef have always been in our diets. Since the industrial revolution, people’s consumption rate of meats has soared drastically. We, as a society, are consuming twice as much meat as we did back in the 1950s (Hill, 2010). Eating meat is a significant cause of serious problems, and greater demand for meat results: the growth of factory farms, cruelty to animals, over usage of antibiotics, pollution in our environments, and loss of significant natural resources. It is apparent that the rate of current consumption of meat has greatly affected biodiversity, environment, and human health.
The amount of animal protein individuals should include in their meals has been a hotly contested topic in these days. Also, if human beings should consume meat has also been another topic of concern among many researchers. Many studies exist about the health effects of red meat, where many people have been left confused on whether they should include or ignore meat in their meals. Meat boost energy levels of its consumers because it is a great source of protein. Meat enriches bodies of consumers with iron, which is necessary for hemoglobin production. In addition, meat improves the immunity of the consumers by providing necessary body minerals. However, meat has been found to be a cause of serious diseases on its consumers. Excess consumption of meat contributes to diabetes and cancer, which are dangerous diseases. People who consume meat regularly increases their chances of suffering from colorectal cancer. Therefore, to avoid the side effects of excessive meat consumption, individuals should control the frequency of meat consumption. Excess meat consumption has adverse health effects, but controlled meat consumption makes consumers benefit from the mentioned health advantages of consuming meat. Therefore, individuals should not stop consuming meat, but they should reduce the number of days that they include meat in their meals.
In 2003, one solution, advocated by Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health Center, is that people should abstain themselves from consuming meat and other meat by-products on Mondays. Going meatless once a week could potentially reduce one’s risk of developing chronic preventable conditions like cardiovascular diseases, hypertension, and obesity, as well as would aid in saving precious natural resources like fresh water and fossil fuels and reduce our carbon footprints on this planet. According to the Meatless Mondays Campaign website, the Meatless Monday movement has extended its influences on a global level; it is expanding its awareness in twenty-four nations. In subsequent years, public health institutions such as Columbia Mailman School of Public Health and the Maxwell School at Syracuse University joined the campaign (Meatless Monday Website). It shows that the participation rate of this Meatless Monday movement worldwide is still rising.
Before we look at the advantages of the Meatless Mondays, it is important to see why many people are opposed to being semi-vegetarians. First, opponents may argue that they cannot survive without proteins from meat sources. The opponents may regularly grumble about how they may be prone to diseases due to weak immune systems if they do not take proteins from meat. In fact, proteins do not necessarily have to be from meat sources. During early centuries, Asians had adapted to live with diets of tofu and tempeh to supplement their protein requirements during meat-deficient seasons. It is historically proven viable that there are many other protein sources from meat alternatives. In fact, many protein products today are derived from numerous sources besides meat, including peas, beans, rice, fungi, and fishes. Therefore, for people out there who may worry about their intakes of protein, it is reassured that there are many other possible healthier sources of proteins available for their body absorptions. Furthermore, opponents may claim that without meat their foods are tasteless. However, when they think about obesity and high blood pressures may have already secretly crept into their bodies, they should probably revise their thoughts about eating a balanced diet with reduced meat consumption. In addition, opponents may claim that there are other ways of saving the world and environment, and that it is not wise to even bother in changing their diet habits and suppress their appetites. They think that combating global warming can be done through changing driving habits, such as driving fuel-efficient or electric-powered cars and taking public transportation and doing more recycling. The common belief that we can slow the pace of global warming down by taking public transportation and advocating the usage of renewable energies actually only brings a small impact, and taking cars off American roads may reduce work efficiencies, human productivities and may also lead to a slow economic downturn. So in the face of these opposing voices, why should we support the proposal for expanding the Meatless Monday movement? One answer is that some of the fears about avoiding meat for a day are overstated. It is true that human bodies need meat as one protein source to sustain the normal functioning of our systems, but improvements in meat production technology make our ethical values questionable. The existence of meat factories leads to cheap meat, and such production factories have purposely undermined animals’ welfares to account for greater profits. Animals are being treated unethically for their fleshes in our dining tables. According to Singer and Mason, industry-grown chickens are bred to live a short life in an unpleasant living conditions when “a stocking density of 96 square inches for a bird of average market weight – that’s about the size of a standard sheet of American [letter] typing paper” (23). Such crowded living spaces for chickens have made chicken farms breeding places for avian flus, which makes consumption of poultry products dangerous in certain circumstances. On the other hand, reduced consumption of meat in our diet can cast a larger impact in our society on the issue of global warming and make the climate problem solvable, as United Nations reported that raising animals for food causes about eighteen percent of all global warming (Bily, 2010). As a result, more impact in our ecosystem can be achieved with reduction in our meat intake.
Although making this simple and conscious decision to go Meatless on Mondays means forgoing three meals of enjoyment of juicy meat per week, such a decision is much safer for the environment. Meat production requires a great effort of conversion from crops into meat, which is an energy exhaustion process. More than a half of Americans’ harvested acreages go to feeding livestock (Lappé, 1982). It is statistically shocking that beef production uses a hundred times the water than most vegetables do (Millstone and Lang 38). There are many other varied statistics out there to show that turning animals into meat requires energy-intensive stages. Even though the numbers and units of those statistics may vary, their converted lower bound is ninety pounds of water per pound of beef produced, and upper bound is a hundred-twenty-five (Lappé, 1982). The bounds are still close enough to prove that meat production exacerbates our energy crises. When considering climate change, it is apparent that animal farming and raising animals for human consumption is a nightmare for global warming, relative to plant agriculture and producing grains and beans. Animal farms emit a great amount of greenhouse gases to trap the heat from escaping earth’s surface. Using statistical analysis, the researchers found out that meat causes more emissions than those of all of transportation means of cars, trains, planes, buses, and ships combined (Hill, 2010). The environmental benefit of cutting meat out of our diets therefore outweighs the enjoyment of meat in our diet.
To combat pollutions and global warming caused by meat production we need to invest in a proposal that could make a large difference fairly quickly. Well, a vegetarian or vegan lifestyle is certainly one confident path to go. However, for those who may say “we will miss the savor of meat” or may not be ready to adapt such a drastic change in their eating habits, semi-vegetarian is a practical option. Meatless Monday is the feasible solution by replacing meat with plant-based food on Monday every week to improve the health of the population as well as the health of our planet. The Meatless Monday movement, originated the idea that the meat-free meals on Mondays, is warranted by multiple studies that have shown that Mondays make the perfect time to reevaluate food choices for the coming week after a weekend of indulging in unhealthy foods.
Even though the Meatless Monday Campaign has been running for eleven years, its influences have reached global height; however, many Americans are not aware of the existence of this movement. Especially, as compared to states of California, New York, and Pennsylvania where their public school systems have joined the Meatless school meal movement, the campaign has not yet expanded its awareness in most of the southern states.
The most effective way of spreading the message of the Meatless Monday movement is via the school system of Pre-K to high schools. In the state of Florida, many public school meals are pumped with fat and cholesterol. Instead of purchasing raw products shipped from all around the United States, the county officials can distribute the money to buy local produces from farmers’ markets while reducing food miles in school meal systems. School chefs can use the Meatless Mondays to experiment with cuisines and feature seasonal produce. The school food service team can develop a menu of meatless options to promote each Monday; it is not necessary that recipes have to vary each week. It is possible to serve children’s favorite dishes like veggie burgers and macaroni cheese as Meatless Monday staples. Sometimes, adults have unconsciously overlooked that kids’ favorite macaroni cheese is not a meat substitute but a perfect choice to go meatless. Schools can also participate in fun Meatless Mondays activities and work with teachers to tie nutrition education into their daily lessons. The young generation, who are the rising future, are more likely to accept good ideas and can thus establish a lifetime of healthier eating habits through this Meatless Monday school program, and they can also bring home the health messages to their parents and encourage their parents to join the movement of eating more plant-based foods and less meat. School can also create the “Meatless Monday” passports to stamp students who tried different cultural meat-free dishes on Mondays (The Meatless Monday Website).
On community level, social media outlets are potential starting places for the Meatless Monday Movement. Neighbors in a community can exchange their reflections, and swap recipes over the internet. Community awareness can also be achieved by bringing local businesses together, especially the restaurants in the community. Every Monday is typically a slow day for restaurant business; it is likely to persuade local restaurants’ chefs to promote the Meatless Monday dishes or menus to help them attract valuable customers on Mondays and promote community health awareness.
Meatless Monday is not a day to let your stomach growl; instead, it is a chance you can experiment with a variety of healthier meat alternatives from different cuisines that is worth to add to your personal cookbook. Eating green by reducing the amount of meat in our diet is the start to knowing how we can efficiently use our plates to cut our carbon footprint, and be cruel-free to tender Mother Nature. An influential food and nature journalist, Michael Pollan, says that he upholds the idea of the Meatless Monday and practices it in his own household because the Meatless Monday is not forcing Americans to go to the extreme side of eating only plants (Pollan, 2006). The Meatless Monday is a simple let-go of one day of meat that can be achieved if you are concerned about the personal health and the health of the earth. Meat reduction on dining tables one meal per week saves carbon dioxide emission equivalent to taking half a million cars off of U.S roads (Bily, 2010). By pushing meat, a little bit out of our dining plates, and center plant-based food on our diet one day per week, we are going to live a lot healthier and the planet is going to breathe less heavily.
Solution Statement
Nutrition labeling plays an important role in promoting healthy living among individuals in the society. The nutrition labels provide in-depth and essential information about eating including serving size, the amount of serving in the package, the number of calories present in the serving, and nutrients available in the serving. This information is important, and it aids an individual to make healthy consumption decision that reduces health complications and increase life expectancy (Shapiro, 2015). Nutrition labels help individuals to determine the most nutritious food that does not increase the level of health complications in the body. For example, it provides information about the nutrient contents in the food such as the sugar level, cholesterol level, and the calories. This helps the consumer to avoid foods that may contain ingredients that may be harmful to his life. In addition, nutrition labels also play an important role in assisting an individual to moderate his weight. Reading and understanding the nutrition labels help an individual to make the right choice of the food that may help the regulate weight loss or weight gain. Since the nutrition labels contain the contents of food nutrients in a given food, it enables people to consume the right nutrient hence healthy living. It is therefore important to consider how and what will be changed in regard to nutrition labels to make them more efficient.
The use of effective nutritional labels will eliminate unhealthy products in the market. There are several solutions to issues of nutritional labels which is necessary for a general health of individuals. First, there is need to have a common basis for standardized use of nutritional claims across countries. Some countries such as Canada have made it mandatory that companies provide the amount of nutrients in the food as well as the health claims about the foods. Countries can establish rules and regulations as to the use of certain elements in the packet foods such as the use of probiotics. Secondly, there is the need to have certain policies that focus on providing the consumers with easy to understand nutrition information so that manufactures more effective label. A more informed public will compel producing companies to give more accurate information in the labels. The United States; for example, is focusing on updating Nutrition Facts Panel to improve the level of clarity in the labeling of the packed foods and by recommending a standardized uniform labeling system (Roberto & Khandpur, 2014). Thirdly, there is the need to pass certain laws such as Nutrition Labeling and Education which will compel manufacturers to provide standardized nutrition information for their packed foods. The information that may be required in the standard label includes level of calories, carbohydrate, fiber, protein and cholesterol in the packed food.
Finally, there is a need to have FOP labels that will display nutritional information in an easy to understand format. The kind of label can come in the form of a single checkmark symbol which the consumers can easily trace to show the level of different components in the food including fats, fiber, saturated fat, and calories. Front-of-Package (FOP) food labels are simple for many consumers to easily comprehend the information on the food label (Soraghan, 2016). Failure to read food labels had significantly contributed to the problem of childhood obesity. Most consumers do not read food labels that appear to be complex to comprehend. FOP food labels are simple and easy for consumers to comprehend. The simplicity of FOP food labels causes many consumers to read food labels. If all consumers read the FOP food labels, then consumers will only consume foods containing minerals that are advised by doctors. As a result, FOP food labels will significantly solve the problem of many diseases caused by processed foods such as child obesity. Parents should also educate their children on the importance of reading FOP food labels before they purchase any processed foods.
References
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