Woman proposes label change

September 3, 2007

Suppose you're in a supermarket's pasta aisle and you want to buy spaghetti. You zero in on two brands -- 16-ounce boxes, same price. You look at each package. The labels list not only "Nutrition Facts" -- total fat, dietary fiber and so on -- but a percentage that shows what share of cost is attributable to packaging. One box says 10 percent. The other says 15 percent. Which do you pick?

The above scenario is hypothetical -- product labels don't reveal packaging costs. Densmore wants them to, though, and she has filed a petition with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration calling for a packaging percentage to be added to food labels.

VPIRG has a link on its Web site to the FDA's site for comments, although VPIRG does not officially endorse the petition, said Charity Carbine, environmental health specialist for the organization.

"We support the overall objective to reduce packaging going into landfills," Carbine said.

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