Defining healthy food has the FDA rethinking what healthy means according to the NY Times. If you remember the food pyramid from the 1980s, they told us that fat is bad and that we should reduce fat in our diets. The FDA was very wrong, resulting in manufacturers making fat-free foods loaded with sugar. The result is that diabetes has exploded as a health problem in this country. More doctors are agreeing that food is medicine and bad food is resulting in medical conditions years later. 40 years later, people are reducing their reliance on sugary drinks and many companies are looking to promote healthier or healthier-sounding alternatives. What do natural, non-GMO, and other labels mean, and is a healthier processed food loaded with calories and low in nutrition good for us? The FDA recently unveiled a new proposal to change its criteria for what foods are healthier. For example, salmon can be considered a healthy packaged food (although there is a difference between wild-caught and farmed as one has no antibiotic exposure), and yogurt may be loaded with sugar. It’s about time. Check out the article below What Is a ‘Healthy’ Food? The F.D.A. Wants to Change the Definition. Salmon is in; sugary yogurt is out. By Dani Blum The Food and Drug Administration unveiled a new proposal on Wednesday that would change the criteria for which packaged foods the agency considers “healthy,” in an attempt to modernize its approach to nutrition and reduce the burden of diet-related diseases. Currently, about 5 percent of all packaged foods are labeled “healthy,” according to the agency. The definition, which was set in 1994, allows for food manufacturers to add the word “healthy” to their products, as long as the products have limited amounts of total fat, saturated fat, cholesterol and sodium and provide at least 10 percent of the daily value of one or more of the following nutrients: vitamin A, vitamin C, calcium, iron, protein or dietary fiber. (Seafood, game meat and raw fruits and vegetables have slightly different criteria.) In 2016, the F.D.A. updated its guidelines to allow for some foods to contain more total fat and to include some that provide at least 10 percent of the daily value of vitamin D or potassium. Read more