Packaged meats to carry nutrition labels like other food products

By Dr. Ananya Mandal, MDMar 2 2012

Starting this Thursday nutrition labels found on almost all packaged foods can be found for ground meat and poultry as well. Forty of the most popular whole, raw cuts or meat and poultry, such as chicken breast or steak, also will have nutritional information either on the package labels or on display at the store, under a new Department of Agriculture rule. The department's Food Safety and Inspection Service has required nutrition labeling since 1993 for products that are not raw or that contain more than one ingredient.

The labels will list the number of calories and the grams of total fat and saturated fat in a product contains. A ground or chopped product that includes on its label a lean percentage statement, such as “85 percent lean,” and is not considered low in fat also will list its fat percentage.

“Every retail package of ground beef, there will have to be exact specifications, nutritional facts on each and every package,” says assistant meat manager at Gordy’s County Market Jason Klohs. “It’ll need to have the lean fat ratio such as 80 percent lean 20 percent fat.” At Gordy’s County Market in Eau Claire, the labeling is still in the works with an estimated day of labeling of April 1st. “It won’t be a large label and it won’t affect them at all as far as the package or the product,” says Klohs.

Many stores across the country have implemented the rules so that customers know the numbers behind those calories, cholesterol and vitamins. “In general I think consumers have become more sophisticated as far as their approach to nutrition and one of their primary sources of info is the nutritional information,” says registered dietician at Mayo Clinic Health System Tom Tio.

Now shoppers can choose what they eat based on nutritional facts. “In order to make good, fully informed decisions about food it’s important to know how much fat is in different meats and some of the other nutrients,” says Tio.

“This is a step in the right direction,” says Natalie Johnstone, a registered dietitian with Rochester General Hospital. “Hopefully, people will start asking more questions and motivate the FDA and people who are supplying these products to give us more information about the foods we eat.”

Johnstone says labels have to be on ground meat products because it’s not always clear what’s in it. “For example, ground turkey they can grind up the fat and the skin,” she says. “So you don’t know what cut of meat your getting. With ground meat you don’t know what they’re grinding it from.”