Added Sugars Taxes and the Farm Bill

For this discussion you will analyze a food label for carbohydrates for a specific food product and share your results and thoughts with the class. You will then be asked to read several articles related to taxing sugar-sweetened beverages and the farm bill and answer a series of questions. Mott’s Fruit Snacks Family Size, 0.8 oz each is the one you will use. 1. How many grams of added sugars are in the product and the serving size you selected? For a product with the new label this will be clearly labeled (but will still require simple multiplication if you need to determine grams for more than 1 serving size). For the purpose of this assignment, if you use the old nutrition facts label and the product does not contain dairy or fruit then the total carbohydrate on the food label will be the added sugar amount   (Links to an external site.) . If your product contains fruit or dairy   (Links to an external site.) you can try to make an estimated guess  (Links to an external site.)  if you would like, but I will allow you to just calculate as if they were not in the product and mention that the product contains fruit and/or dairy. To determine if a product contains fruit or milk it will be listed in the ingredients section.  Also, consider if the product is easily consumed by one person in one sitting, sometimes manufactures try and deceive   (Links to an external site.) consumers with serving sizes that do not reflect current portion sizes which leads to less understanding of calorie information by consumers. Depending if the food label is new or old   (Links to an external site.) this may be better addressed.  Do you think individuals are eating the serving size listed on the container, such as 1 oz of chips, ½ cups of ice cream, or two Oreo’s? Figure 2. Packaging and Serving Size   2. Calculate the extra calories for each serving the added sugars add to the product. There are 4 calories per gram of carbohydrates. 3. Identify all the added sugars in the ingredient list on the food label (there can be several). The list I wrote in the introduction section is not comprehensive. You can search online if you are unsure about an ingredient in your product. Questions to answer for this part of the discussion: What is the name of your product? What name does the manufacturers give to the added sugars contained within this product? How much added sugars does the product have? Where are they located on the label? The ingredients are listed by weight in descending order. The ingredient that weighs the most is listed first. How many extra calories from the added sugar are in the product? Would it be easy to consume the whole package or container in one setting for the average individual? The United States Department of Agriculture recommends   (Links to an external site.) that added sugar contain no more than 10% of total calories per day. For an individual on a 2,000 calorie diet per day that is 200 calories. What percentage would the calories of this product provide to an individual on a 2,000 per day diet? Is this over the limit? Do you think this would be the only added sugars a person would eat during a day? Is this a product marketed towards children? What do you think about the new Nutrition Facts Label? Anything else?