Grocery Shopping Made Easy: Facts Up Front
For many people, a trip to the grocery store can seem like an overwhelming task. With so many different foods to choose from, it can be hard to determine the best options for building a healthy diet for yourself and your family. Key to any healthy diet is maintaining Energy Balance—the principle behind Together Counts. To do this, shoppers will want to learn to balance calories consumed through food and beverages with the appropriate amount of physical activity. That’s why nutrition education and awareness are so important.
Together, the Grocery Manufacturers Association (GMA) and the Food Marketing Institute (FMI) have developed a simple, front-of-pack label to address some of the obstacles shoppers face when it comes to healthy eating. Facts Up Front displays all the important information from the Nutrition Facts Panel in an easy-to-use format on the front of your favorite food and beverage products. If you’ve walked down the grocery store aisles recently, you might have noticed these Facts Up Front labels, which let you easily see the nutritional profile of your favorite food items in a matter of seconds. It can be a great tool to help manage your calorie and nutrient intakes.
But it doesn’t stop there. Because shoppers’ nutrition knowledge varies greatly from one person to the next, GMA and FMI recently launched a new website, www.factsupfront.org, which offers interactive, user-friendly tools to educate shoppers and help them make more informed choices.
The site contains lots of features to keep you on track, including:
- A Nutrition Calculator – Helps people determine the specific calorie and nutrient needs for themselves and their family members.
- An Interactive Label – Explains all the nutrients featured in Facts Up Front, how they impact your health and common nutrient sources.
- A Nutrition Quiz – Allows nutrition novices and savvy shoppers alike to identify opportunities to learn more about building a healthful diet.
- Shopping and Meal Planning Tips – Provides advice from registered dietitians to help Americans overcome common obstacles to creating healthful meals.
- Recipes – Offers easy, delicious dishes made with products bearing the Facts Up Front label.
- Health Professionals Resources – Provides downloadable tools and resources for educating patients and clients.
Already, the Nutrition Calculator is a site favorite and great to use so you know your recommended daily calorie intake. Just answer five quick questions about your gender, weight, height, age and activity level and the calculator does the rest. It’s a fun way for the entire family to stay on track together!
You can visit www.factsupfront.org, to learn more and start down the path of eating better.
Pamela G. Bailey, President and CEO of the Grocery Manufacturers Association, wrote this blog post on behalf of the Together Counts™ program.
Based in Washington, D.C., the Grocery Manufacturers Association (GMA) is the voice of more than 300 leading food, beverage and consumer product companies that sustain and enhance the quality of life for hundreds of millions of people in the United States and around the globe. The association and its member companies are committed to meeting the needs of consumers through product innovation, responsible business practices and effective public policy solutions. The food, beverage and consumer packaged goods industry in the United States generates sales of $2.1 trillion annually, employs 14 million workers and contributes $1 trillion in added value to the economy every year. To learn more, visit www.gmaonline.org.