Renee Walker's label

All natural!  Good source of calcium! Low fat! Messages on the front of food packages shout at us in the grocery store, convincing us we need not stare at the stark statistics on the back of the package to determine if it’s healthy.  When it comes to making food choices, the current nutrition label is not nearly as helpful as it needs to be.

Rethink the Food Label is a design challenge hosted by UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism’s News21 and Good magazine that asked the public to imagine what a more informative nutrition label could look like.

Renee Walker’s label that breaks down ingredients visually was determined to be the winner.

Competition judge and food writer Michael Pollan said of the label, “Walker’s design is dramatic, intriguing and holds great promise. I liked being able to see the visual breakdown of foods, although I wonder how her design would work with more complicated products, like Lucky Charms, say, or a PowerBar. Even so, it’s a step in the right direction. What I’d like to see next is some sort of color coding for the food groups and some attempt to show the degree of processing of various foods. Eating doesn’t have to be complicated; figuring out what’s in your food shouldn’t be either.”

Joey Brunelle's label

It seems what is most needed in a food label redesign is the ability to quickly determine whether a product has health benefits or risks. A list of numbers and statistics don’t resonate with most people, which is why visualizing information with charts and graphs is definitely an improvement on the current Nutrition Facts.

Joey Brunelle’s circle graphs are an efficient use of space, but not as immediately clear as the bar graphs on Bradley Mu’s label. While the green/yellow/red stoplight color scheme sends a familiar signal, it’s not accessible to those who are red/green colorblind.  Realistically, a new food label would have to scale well from a small candy bar to a large cereal box, which could become difficult with visual charts and graphs. On Mu’s design, highlighting food additives in bold text is a good thought, but it may just confuse those who don’t already know to watch out for high fructose corn syrup. Similarly, people with limited health literacy skills aren’t going to understand the relevance of “glycemic index.”

As creative and idealistic as these propositions are, one of the largest barriers to redesigning the food label is the food industry. Companies would never allow any outright nutritional naysaying – leaving you on your own to determine if 1192 mg of sodium or 20 grams of sugar per serving is bad for you.

Bradley Mu's label

One of the issues that is most difficult to communicate in nutrition facts is that the percent daily values are based on a 2,000 calorie diet, which is not right for everyone. A child needs fewer calories, and someone with an active lifestyle needs more. Perhaps this could be addressed with a smartphone app that could help create more personalized nutrition and diet recommendations.

The food label is one of the most common health communications products out there – many of us use it nearly every day. How can we make it a more effective tool for those with limited health literacy skills? What do you want to see on food labels?