The FDA has a new definition for ‘healthy food,’ stripping the label from some yogurts, breads, and fruit cups that have hidden sugars
The Food and Drug Administration’s new guidance on what foods can be labeled “healthy” excludes “highly sweetened” yogurts and cereals.
Your “healthy” yogurt may be getting a rebrand soon.
On Thursday, the US Food and Drug Administration published its new and improved definition of what constitutes a “healthy” food, tightening up the limits on added sugars, salt, and saturated fat in foods that carry the label.
In a meticulous 318-page document, the federal agency details strict parameters for companies that wish to call their foods “healthy.”
For example, a fruit-based food can’t be “healthy” anymore if one serving has more than 2% of a person’s recommended daily value of sugar. The same goes for veggies, meat, and eggs, while grains can have up to 10% DV of added sugars.
This could change how some brands currently market their food products as a healthy snack alternative.
The last time the FDA issued an update on the “healthy” label was three decades ago, according to the agency.
Under the new standards, the agency said foods such as “water, avocados, nuts and seeds, higher fat fish, such as salmon and olive oil will now qualify to use the ‘healthy’ claim.”
The new guidance comes as competition in the heath food aisle intensifies — the global health and wellness food market was valued at roughly $878 billion last year, according to a 2024 market data study from Data Bridge.
The FDA’s report estimates that the changes could make a dent in chronic diseases nationally, saving about $686 million over 20 years.
The cost to manufacturers, meanwhile, comes in at $403 million over 20 years for “reformulating, labeling, and recordkeeping,” per the report.
The rule won’t change food labeling overnight: it’s not slated to take effect until 2028, and it’s an optional one — food labels don’t have to mention they’re “healthy.”
But it comes just as President-elect Trump prepares to take office. Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who Trump has tapped to lead the US Departmet of Health and Human Services, the umbrella federal health agency that oversees FDA, has recently proclaimed he’s waging war against big food companies, vowing to “Make America Healthy Again” and take chemical dyes out of our Fruit Loops. (In case you were wondering: Fruit Loops, with 24% of a person’s recommended daily dose of added sugars per serving, do not make the new “healthy” claim cut.)
“If the incoming administration is truly serious about making Americans eat healthier, then they should embrace the power of food labeling,” former FDA official Peter Lurie, executive director of the Center for Science in the Public Interest, told The New York Times.
