Further arguments

Please feel free to suggest your arguments against GDA as a reply below.

We are curently considering the following:

No Official Sugar Reference in the USA

The US ‘Daily Value’ and DV% is very much like GDA and DV% is legitimized by USDA. But there is no reference set for sugar in the US. In this folder from USDA you can find the follwoing statement.

 See how a ‘star’ is incerted on this US product instead of a percent for sugar:

Find more information on US food labelling here: http://www.cfsan.fda.gov/~dms/foodlab.html

“Official” or not really Official sugar reference

In the 2006 document CIAA Recommendation for a Common Nutrition Labelling Scheme on page 11 it seems like the industry could not find independent support for setting the sugar reference at 90 grams or they were unable to agree on the 90 grams. They wrote that sugar references were “agreed by majority of the working group.”

In a note on the same page indicates that reference values determined by the industry themselvs are refered to with the term “official”:
“Sugar industry is opposed to setting a CIAA “official” value for total sugars in the absence of scientific consensus on the need to separate sugars from the rest of carbohydrates. They do not, however, oppose to individual companies using their own GDA for sugars, if they wish to do so, but under exclusive responsiblity.”

GDA handles protein and fibers almost as if they were negative nutrients

CIAA do allow protein and fibers in  their GDAs. They are optional information that food manufactores can add if they find it relevant. The only indication to consumers that they are different from the nutrients that should be limited is a small horisontal space like here:

Note the space between Salt and Fiber.

Some food companies forget the space.

And some add a few extra spaces.

To handle positive and negative nutrients so similar is a major weakness of the GDA. It’s misleading.

The double portion problem

For some food categories (e.g. cereals) it is not just portion size, but also added milk, that is a dangerous variable. Some GDAs are based on (i) portion + (ii) milk added by consumer, but they don’t state (a) type of milk (whole, semi-skimmed or skimmed) and (b) amount of milk (double portion problem). It makes a great difference whether you have your morning Frosties with whole milk (which sometimes has an incredible 5% of fat in the UK) and skimmed-milk with 0,5% fat).

GDA also for kids

Some efforts are put into developing a GDA for kids. Here is an example from the UK:

Find childrens reference values here.

Why is fiber and protein optional when saturated and salt are not?

Find more arguments against GDA in this document:

Share your arguments as a reply below.