The Institute of Medicine released its report on Front-of-Package Nutrition Labeling today . In what is becoming the norm for the IOM, they totally missed the opportunity to produce something actually useful for the American public and once again demonstrated how gratuitous status and intellectual inertia can be coupled with a good dose of taxpayer's money to produce a 175 page report that is pathetic rubbish.

Not only were the authors of the report steeped in the dogma of outdated labeling practices, they could not tear themselves away from a nutrition doctrinaire that is patently false.

We have known for 4 decades that the front of the package was a totally useless place to communicate information to consumers. Under pressure from consumer groups such as the Center for Science in the Public Interest, (who thought they could 'control' the food industry) the government quickly agreed to a series of front-of-package, side-of-package, and back-of-package labeling schemes. The fact is there is not enough real estate on a label for useful nutritional information, nor do consumers have enough time to read and digest it.

Of course, the understanding was that if the public was made fearful of certain nutrients, the limited information on the label would compliment this fear and the consumers' choices could be influenced. Never once was there the thought of actually educating the consumer, thereby allowing for an 'informed choice.'

From the very beginning of the labeling debate, there was the option to develop the Universal Product Code or UPS or Barcode into a consumer information system. For those consumers who had a genuine interest in nutrition, one swipe of the UPC across a scanner would bring up a complete database of nutritional information, recipes, allergies, etc., etc. No longer would there be a limitation on label real estate. Unfortunately, consumer advocacy organizations were far too interested in fighting it out with industry to employ some imagination in the interests of the constituency they supposedly worked for. Now, with near-universal access to the Internet and UPC-reading smartphones, this technology is easier to put into place than ever.

So conventional labeling systems, with all their insurmountable problems endured. Over the years, like a growing Tower of Babel, labeling systems became more complex and even less understandable. To deal with that problem, the food 'authoritarians' decided to simplify the label and go another step further in eliminating intelligent consumer's choice. Simplified systems intended to drive the consumer directly to a specific choice - traffic lights, check marks, scores, medical society endorsements - began to appear - designed to eliminate thought and dispense with informed decision making. Again, not the slightest thought given to educating the consumer.

Into the fray steps the Institute of Medicine whose 175 page report now says that the problem is that there is too much information on the front-of-package label. They recommend cutting it back to just four items. All consumers really need to know about is calories, saturated fat, trans fat and sodium.

This latest IOM report comes on the heels of two related publications: 1) the Harvard study by Bernstein and Willet , which revealed that sodium consumption has not changed in 40 years, while the rate of hypertension has gone up considerably, and 2) the report at the Obesity Society annual meeting in San Diego showing that calorie labeling on the menu did not reduce calorie consumption in fast-food restaurants.

The first publication revealed that sodium is not related to the rise in hypertension, which was always the main reason that the IOM wants salt consumption reduced, while the second report revealed that calorie labeling had little effect on consumer choice.

Talk about being a day late and a dollar short!