The FDA is warning some producers that their food labels are misleading. Fair enough. I expect the information on a package to be accurate. I also expect consumers to distinguish between a label’s content information (5 percent sugar) and a marketing claim (the creamiest pudding ever!).
But make no mistake. Stiffening or broadening the requirements for food labels isn’t likely to make a dent in changing poor eating habits or changing buyer behavior. Why? Because people engage in predictably irrational behavior, as Duke professor Dan Ariely explains so beautifully in his book and on his Web site. That reality won’t matter to an attorney — or a consumer — who wants to cash in. It already looks as if we’re heading into creamiest-pudding-ever legal territory.
