Health Nut: Food Labels Continue to Confuse Consumers

As I put the holiday Ritz crackers out to accompany the cheddar cheese this holiday season, I noticed something. The Ritz were really salty. Of course, these delectable crackers have never been low in sodium, but I was still shocked. Turns out, we got the multi-grain crackers. While the multi-grain crackers are made with a better type of flour, they had 20 more milligrams, per serving, of salt.

Food label confusion has been an issue for a long time. Now companies are attempting to create scales for food, basing them on a point system to help consumers decide what foods are more nutritious for them. Check out the New York Times article. The problem with this is that while certain foods are definitely better for you than others, many are still toeing a line between valued and junk. A point system could continue to confuse consumers and ostracize certain foods that didn't get a fair chance from the scaling systems.

What do you think? Will point systems help consumers pick healthy foods? Or is this just another gimick that will confuse consumers even more?
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