Regardless of whether or not gluten-intolerance is as widespread as some claim it is, I'd like to see a simple change to food labeling to make it easier for those who want to know what they are eating to find out: versioning on labels.
The way it works now, I go to the supermarket. I see, say, a frozen spaghetti and meatball entree. I carefully read the long label to see if it has anything that makes me want to avoid it [1]. It passes. I buy it. I like it. Can I now just buy it again, without reading the label?
Nope! Food companies like to tinker with their products to improve consumer satisfaction and to cut their costs and increase their profits, so I need to read the label again.
If they put version information, such as a last change date, on the ingredient list I could then just glance at the date and see if it has changed since I last bought the item.
This should be doable at almost zero cost to the food producers if it is phased in by making the switch to versioning on a given product the next time they are changing the label.
[1] I have no known foods that I must avoid for medical reasons, but I have some admittedly irrational requirements. Some time when I was a kid, I decided for some reason to stop eating meats other than beef and pork. I have sometimes described myself as a lacto-ovo-bovo-porco vegetarian.
The way it works now, I go to the supermarket. I see, say, a frozen spaghetti and meatball entree. I carefully read the long label to see if it has anything that makes me want to avoid it [1]. It passes. I buy it. I like it. Can I now just buy it again, without reading the label?
Nope! Food companies like to tinker with their products to improve consumer satisfaction and to cut their costs and increase their profits, so I need to read the label again.
If they put version information, such as a last change date, on the ingredient list I could then just glance at the date and see if it has changed since I last bought the item.
This should be doable at almost zero cost to the food producers if it is phased in by making the switch to versioning on a given product the next time they are changing the label.
[1] I have no known foods that I must avoid for medical reasons, but I have some admittedly irrational requirements. Some time when I was a kid, I decided for some reason to stop eating meats other than beef and pork. I have sometimes described myself as a lacto-ovo-bovo-porco vegetarian.