Guideline Daily Amount

Last updated

A Guideline Daily Amount (GDA) was a nutrition facts label originally designed in 1996 in the United Kingdom (UK) as a collaboration between the government, the food industry and consumer organisations. GDAs appeared on the front and back of food packaging to help raise awareness of how much a food item represents as a proportion of a balanced intake each day in each food element (e.g. energy, fat, salt, etc.). The British initiative was followed in the European Union (EU) and influenced similar systems in other countries including the United States.

Contents

It is now replaced by Reference Intake (RI) in the UK and the EU.

Description and usage

GDAs are guidelines for healthy adults and children about the approximate amount of calories, fat, saturated fat, total sugars, and sodium/salt. [1] The GDA labels have the percentage of daily value per serving and the absolute amount per serving of these categories. The front-of-packages (FOP) GDAs must at least have calories listed, but the back-of-package (BOP) GDAs must list, at a minimum, these five key nutrients: Energy, Fat, Saturates, Sugar and Salt. [2] These guideline are intended to help consumers make sense of the nutrition information provided on food labels by translating science into consumer friendly information that help consumers put the nutrition information they read on a food label into the context of their overall diet.[ citation needed ]

The system was designed in the United Kingdom in 1996 as a collaboration between the government, the food industry and consumer organisations. [3] The term was in common usage in the UK since the late 1990s. [4] [5] The British system was followed in the United States to enhance the existing food labelling. [6] A modified version of the GDA system was adopted by the Australian food and beverage industry in 2006 and called the 'Daily Intake Guide'. [7] [8] In 2009 the original GDA system analysis as adopted as an industry standard in the European Union and in 2012 a variant was adopted in the US and called 'Facts Up Front'. [9]

After introduction outside the UK, there was controversy about what the GDAs actually represent. For example, calculating a personal R.I., which is dependent on a person's height, weight, amount of daily activity and age, an intake rating which is about 5-10% above what that person should actually be eating and drinking. When calculating the GDAs the CIAA uses the average caloric intake needed for women because this best fits the needs of the majority of the population. Women need, on average, 1800–2200 kilocalories (kcal) a day whereas children need 1500–2000 kcal and men 2200–2700 kcal. [2] In March 2009, the European Food Safety Authority published its opinion on intake levels for Europe and they were consistent with numbers behind the GDAs developed in the UK. [10]

Moreover, not all categories are equal. While a GDA for calorific intake might represent a broad target in so far as people need to take in a minimum of calories to survive, the GDA for saturated fat is not a target, as ingesting no saturated fats at all would not be harmful to health, so long as there were fats of a non-saturated variety in the diet.[ citation needed ]

Replacement

In 2014, GDA was beginning to be replaced in the UK and EU by Reference Intake. [11] [12]

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Calorie</span> Unit of energy used in nutrition

The calorie is a unit of energy that originated from the obsolete caloric theory of heat. For historical reasons, two main definitions of "calorie" are in wide use. The large calorie, food calorie, dietary calorie, or kilogram calorie was originally defined as the amount of heat needed to raise the temperature of one kilogram of water by one degree Celsius. The small calorie or gram calorie was defined as the amount of heat needed to cause the same increase in one gram of water. Thus, 1 large calorie is equal to 1000 small calories.

A nutrient is a substance used by an organism to survive, grow, and reproduce. The requirement for dietary nutrient intake applies to animals, plants, fungi, and protists. Nutrients can be incorporated into cells for metabolic purposes or excreted by cells to create non-cellular structures, such as hair, scales, feathers, or exoskeletons. Some nutrients can be metabolically converted to smaller molecules in the process of releasing energy, such as for carbohydrates, lipids, proteins, and fermentation products, leading to end-products of water and carbon dioxide. All organisms require water. Essential nutrients for animals are the energy sources, some of the amino acids that are combined to create proteins, a subset of fatty acids, vitamins and certain minerals. Plants require more diverse minerals absorbed through roots, plus carbon dioxide and oxygen absorbed through leaves. Fungi live on dead or living organic matter and meet nutrient needs from their host.

Food energy is chemical energy that animals derive from their food to sustain their metabolism, including their muscular activity.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Margarine</span> Semi-solid oily spread often used as a butter substitute

Margarine is a spread used for flavoring, baking, and cooking. It is most often used as a substitute for butter. Although originally made from animal fats, most margarine consumed today is made from vegetable oil. The spread was originally named oleomargarine from Latin for oleum and Greek margarite. The name was later shortened to margarine.

In the U.S. and Canada, the Reference Daily Intake (RDI) is used in nutrition labeling on food and dietary supplement products to indicate the daily intake level of a nutrient that is considered to be sufficient to meet the requirements of 97–98% of healthy individuals in every demographic in the United States. While developed for the US population, it has been adopted by other countries, though not universally.

The Dietary Reference Intake (DRI) is a system of nutrition recommendations from the National Academy of Medicine (NAM) of the National Academies. It was introduced in 1997 in order to broaden the existing guidelines known as Recommended Dietary Allowances. The DRI values differ from those used in nutrition labeling on food and dietary supplement products in the U.S. and Canada, which uses Reference Daily Intakes (RDIs) and Daily Values (%DV) which were based on outdated RDAs from 1968 but were updated as of 2016.

The law in the United Kingdom on food information and labelling is multifaceted and is spread over many reforms and parliamentary acts. UK law is based on the relevant European Union rules, chiefly Regulation (EU) 1169/2011, which is implemented in the UK in the Food Information Regulations 2014, the Food Information (Wales) Regulations 2014, the Food Information (Scotland) Regulations 2014 and the Food Information Regulations 2014. Regulations apply to the labelling of goods pre-packaged for sale and to the provision of information regarding non-prepacked (loose) foods.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nutrition facts label</span> Table of nutrition facts on food labels

The nutrition facts label is a label required on most packaged food in many countries, showing what nutrients and other ingredients are in the food. Labels are usually based on official nutritional rating systems. Most countries also release overall nutrition guides for general educational purposes. In some cases, the guides are based on different dietary targets for various nutrients than the labels on specific foods.

Nutritional rating systems are used to communicate the nutritional value of food in a more-simplified manner, with a ranking, than nutrition facts labels. A system may be targeted at a specific audience. Rating systems have been developed by governments, non-profit organizations, private institutions, and companies. Common methods include point systems to rank foods based on general nutritional value or ratings for specific food attributes, such as cholesterol content. Graphics and symbols may be used to communicate the nutritional values to the target audience.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Western pattern diet</span> Modern dietary pattern

The Western pattern diet is a modern dietary pattern that is generally characterized by high intakes of pre-packaged foods, refined grains, red meat, processed meat, high-sugar drinks, candy and sweets, fried foods, industrially produced animal products, butter and other high-fat dairy products, eggs, potatoes, corn, and low intakes of fruits, vegetables, whole grains, pasture-raised animal products, fish, nuts, and seeds.

The Dietary Guidelines for Americans (DGA) provide nutritional advice for Americans who are healthy or who are at risk for chronic disease but do not currently have chronic disease. The Guidelines are published every five years by the US Department of Agriculture, together with the US Department of Health and Human Services. Notably, the most recent ninth edition for 2020–25 includes dietary guidelines for children from birth to 23 months. In addition to the Dietary Guidelines per se, there are additional tools for assessing diet and nutrition, including the Healthy Eating Index (HEI), which can be used to assess the quality of a given selection of foods in the context of the Dietary Guidelines. Also provided are additional explanations regarding customization of the Guidelines to individual eating preferences, application of the Guidelines during pregnancy and infancy, the USDA Nutrition Evidence Systematic Review, information about the Nutrition Communicators Network and the MyPlate initiative, information from the National Academies about redesigning the process by which the Dietary Guidelines for Americans are created, and information about dietary guidelines from other nations.

A traffic light rating system is a system for indicating the status of a variable using the red, amber or green of traffic lights.

Dietary Reference Values (DRV) is the name of the nutritional requirements systems used by the United Kingdom Department of Health and the European Union's European Food Safety Authority.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Criticism of fast food</span> Overview about the criticism of fast food

Criticism of fast food includes claims of negative health effects, animal cruelty, cases of worker exploitation, children targeted marketing and claims of cultural degradation via shifts in people's eating patterns away from traditional foods. Fast food chains have come under fire from consumer groups, such as the Center for Science in the Public Interest, a longtime fast food critic over issues such as caloric content, trans fats and portion sizes. Social scientists have highlighted how the prominence of fast food narratives in popular urban legends suggests that modern consumers have an ambivalent relationship with fast food, particularly in relation to children.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Added sugar</span> Caloric sweeteners added to food and beverages

Added sugars or free sugars are sugar carbohydrates added to food and beverages at some point before their consumption. These include added carbohydrates, and more broadly, sugars naturally present in honey, syrup, and fruits. They can take multiple chemical forms, including sucrose, glucose (dextrose), and fructose.

Federal responsibility for Canadian food labelling requirements is shared between two departments, Health Canada and the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA). All labelling information that is provided on food labels or in advertisements, as required by legislation, must be accurate, truthful and not misleading. Ingredient lists must accurately reflect the contents and their relative proportions in a food. Nutrition facts tables must accurately reflect the amount of a nutrient present in a food. Net quantity declarations must accurately reflect the amount of food in the package. Certain claims, such as those relating to nutrient content, organic, kosher, halal and certain disease-risk reduction claims, are subject to specific regulatory requirements in addition to the prohibitions in the various acts. For claims that are not subject to specific regulatory requirements, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) and/or Health Canada provide interpretive guidance that assist industry in compliance.

Section 4205 of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) requires that standard menu items at qualifying chain restaurants and vending machines have proper nutrition labeling. Though the Affordable Care Act was signed into federal law in 2010, implementation of the menu labeling requirements was delayed by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration several times until they went into effect on May 7, 2018.

Reference Intake (RI) is a food labelling system in the European Union and the United Kingdom. It is a means of communicating recommended nutrient intake to the public. Reference Intakes replaced the term Guideline Daily Amount (GDA), although the principles behind both are the same. The major difference is that GDAs existed for men, women and children; there is only one set of RIs for an average adult.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Trans fat</span> Type of unsaturated fat

Trans fat, also called trans-unsaturated fatty acids, or trans fatty acids, is a type of unsaturated fat that occurs in foods. Trace concentrations of trans fats occur naturally, but large amounts are found in some processed foods. Since consumption of trans fats is unhealthy, artificial trans fats are highly regulated or banned in many nations. However, they are still widely consumed in developing nations, resulting in hundreds of thousands of deaths each year. The World Health Organization (WHO) has set a goal to make the world free from industrially produced trans fat by the end of 2023.

Food labeling in Mexico refers to the official norm that mainly consists of placing labels on processed food sold in the country in order to help consumers make a better purchasing decision based on nutritional criteria. The system was approved in 2010 under the Norma Oficial Mexicana (NOM) NOM-051-SCFI/SSA1-2010. The standards, denominated as Daily Dietary Guidelines, were based on the total amount of saturated fats, fats, sodium, sugars and energy or calories represented in kilocalories per package, the percentage they represented per individual portion, as well as the percentage that they would represent in a daily intake.

References

  1. ↑ "Food Labelling and GDA's | public | Queen's University Belfast". www.qub.ac.uk. 2010-12-03. Retrieved 2022-07-04.
  2. 1 2 "Guideline Daily Amounts (Using the front of pack label)". Label. Retrieved August 12, 2016.
  3. ↑ Rayner, Mike; Scarborough, Peter; Williams, Carol (2004). "The origin of Guideline Daily Amounts and the Food Standards Agency's guidance on what counts as 'a lot' and 'a little'". Public Health Nutrition. 7 (4): 549–556. doi: 10.1079/PHN2003552 . ISSN   1368-9800. PMID   15153261.
  4. ↑ "Guideline amount". Collins dictionary.
  5. ↑ "GDA | Meaning & Definition for UK English | Lexico.com". Lexico Dictionaries | English. Archived from the original on July 4, 2022. Retrieved 2022-07-04.
  6. ↑ Arp, Robert, ed. (2013). 1001 Ideas That Changed the Way We Think. Atria Books. p. 920. ISBN   978-1476705729 . Retrieved 15 February 2015.
  7. ↑ Daily Intake Guide
  8. ↑ "Daily Intake Guide". The DIG Story. Retrieved August 12, 2016.
  9. ↑ Facts Up Front
  10. ↑ "Improving the food literacy of consumers" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on August 17, 2011. Retrieved August 12, 2016.
  11. ↑ "Check the label". Food Standards Agency. Retrieved 2022-07-01.
  12. ↑ "GDA: Food & drink labelling". Food and Drink Federation. Archived from the original on 5 June 2014. Retrieved 5 June 2014.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.