Healthy Food

Healthy Food

When the Roast Is Extra-Lean

The FDA spells out what qualities a food must have to be healthy

“Healthy” no longer is in the eye of the beholder, at least when it comes to the nutritional claims trumpeted across the labels of the nutrition labeling law recently passed by Congress, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has actually defined what different foods must contain if food manufacturers wish to claim that their products are high in fiber, low in fat, or just plain healthy. For food manufactures to simply label a product as “healthy,” they must show that the food:

• Meet FDA standards for being low in fat, saturated fat, sodium, and cholesterol.
• Contains at least 10 percent of the FDA’s recommended daily value of either vitamin A, vitamin C, iron, calcium, protein or fiber.
• In the case of frozen dinners, meets the FDA’s standards for being low in fat, saturated fat, sodium and cholesterol, and contains at least 10 percent of the recommended daily value of three of the nutrients specified above.

Meets the FDA’s definition of extra-lean in the case of fresh meat, game meat, or seafood (see definitions below).

The FDA gets even more precise when it comes to specific claims such as “no added sugar” and “fat-free.” A food labeled “low-fat food” must not be just low in fat, for instance, but 25 percent lower in fat than the “reference” food to which it is being compared.

Vital Ingredients

How much is too much? How little is too little? The FDA recommends the following for a healthy diet, assuming a daily intake of 2,000 calories – about the amount required by a young woman.

Healthy food. Photo by Elena.

Food component and maximum daily value:

Fat – 65 g

Saturated fatty acids – 20 g

Cholesterol – 300 mg

Total carbohydrate – 300 g

Fiber – 25 g

Sodium – 2,400 mg

Potassium 3,500 mg

Protein 50g.

(the DV for protein does not apply to certain populations; for these groups, FDA nutrition experts recommend the following:

    Children 1 to 4 years – 16 h

    Infants less than 1 year – 14 g

    Pregnant women – 60 g

    Nursing mothers – 65 g.

Nutrient and minimum daily value

Vitamin A 5,000 International Units (IU)

Vitamin C 60 mg

Thiamin 1.5 mg

Riboflavin 1.7 mg

Nlacin 20 mg

Calcium -1.0 g

Iron 18 mg

Vitamin D 400 IU

Vitamin E 30 IU

Vitamin B6 2 mg

Folic acid 0.4 mg

Vitamin B12 6 micrograms (mcg)

Phosphorus 1g

Iodine 150 mcg

Magnesium 400 mg

inc 15 mg

Copper 2 mg

Blotin 0.3 mg

Pantothenic acid 10 mg.