爱思英语编者按：美国食品药物管理局的责任之一就是确保食品被正常标注。该局提供对包装上应标示的食品成分，产地及生产过程这些重要信息的管理规定，目的是确保产品上的说明不会误导消费者。
11 Common Words With Very Specific Meanings on Food Labels
One of the responsibilities of the Food and Drug Administration is to assure that foods are labeled properly. It provides regulations on what, where, and how prominently information should be placed on packaging. The idea is that consumers should not be misled by what they read on the groceries they buy. However, the labels should also be written in plain, understandable language. This means that sometimes regular English words—words that have commonsense but slightly fuzzy meanings—must be defined more precisely for food labeling. Here are 11 words that mean something more specific on the supermarket shelves.
1. IMITATION
A food that looks like another food but isn’t made of the same stuff is an imitation, right? Not quite. It only has to be labeled as “imitation” if it has a lower amount of protein or some other essential nutrient than the food it’s trying to look like.
2. FREE
If it’s free of fat, or sugar, or salt, it doesn’t mean that not one trace of those things is to be found in it. The FDA evaluates certain terms with reference to a typical portion size known as an RACC . An RACC of eggnog, for example, is ½ cup. For croutons, it’s 7 grams, and for scrambled eggs, 100 grams. To be labeled “free” of calories, the food must have less than 5 per RACC. For fat and sugar, less than .5 grams. For sodium, less than 5 milligrams. Also, the food must somehow be processed to be “free” of those things in order to get the simple “free” label. You can’t have “fat free lettuce,” only “lettuce, a fat free food.”
3. LOW
Low is also defined with respect to set portion sizes and varies with whether it refers to calories, fat, or sodium. For fat it’s less than 3 grams. For calories, it’s less than 40, unless it’s a prepared meal, in which case it’s 120 per 100 grams. Saturated fat and cholesterol have specific “low” values as well.
4. REDUCED/LESS
Sometimes manufacturers want to make a relational claim about a food—not just that it’s “low” in some substance, but lower than it usually is . Relational claims are evaluated with respect to a reference food. A reference food should be the same type of food though the numbers against which the “reduced” claims are compared can be an average of the top three brands. The “reduced” substance must be less than 25 percent of what it is in the reference food.
5. LIGHT
Light is also evaluated with respect to a reference food, and a rather complicated set of conditions is taken into account for different substances. For example, if a “light” product has more than half of its calories from fat, the fat must be reduced by half per reference serving amount. If less than half its calories come from fat, it can be “light” if the calories per serving are reduced by 1/3. Sometimes foods that meet “low” requirements can also be labeled as “light.” “Lightly salted” should have 50 percent less sodium than a reference food.
6. HIGH
Our food labels don’t only brag about low levels of the bad stuff, but also about high levels of the good stuff. “High” means that the food has 20 percent or more of the recommended daily value for that nutrient per reference serving.
7. GOOD SOURCE
“Good source of” is a little lower than “high.” A food with this label should have 10 to 19 percent of the recommended daily value.
8. MORE
Below “good source” is “more,” “fortified,” “enriched,” “added,” “extra,” or “plus.” A food with 10 percent of the recommended daily value can use one of these, but it only applies for vitamins, minerals, protein, fiber, and potassium.
9. LEAN
“Lean” applies to seafoods or meats that have less than combined specified levels of fat, saturated fat, and cholesterol .
10. HEALTHY
To qualify as “healthy,” a product must meet the “low” standard for fat and saturated fat, another standard for sodium and cholesterol, and it must have at least 10 percent of the recommended daily value for a range of nutrients.
11. NATURAL
After years soliciting suggestions and considering comments on the question of what “natural” should mean, no useful consensus could be reached, and the FDA decided to forgo establishing an official definition. Though it hasn’t issued rules for the use of “natural,” it endorses the general understanding that it implies nothing artificial or synthetic has been added that would not normally be expected to be added.
美国食品药物管理局的责任之一就是确保食品被正常标注。该局提供对包装上应标示的食品成分，产地及生产过程这些重要信息的管理规定，目的是确保产品上的说明不会误导消费者。
然而，标签应使用简单且易懂的语言。这就意味着有时正常的英语单词在食品标示中应该更加简洁明了，这些词都是常见的，但是意思稍微有些模糊。下面这11个词在超市的货架上就有着特殊的意义。
1.IMITATION
一种食品看上去像另一种食品，但是原料却不相同，那么这就是一个仿造品，是吗？这是不准确的。如果该食品比被模仿的食品的蛋白质或其他一些营养成分低，那么它只能被贴上“仿造品”的标签。
2.FREE
食物上脱脂、无糖或者无盐的字样，并不意味着食物中完全没有这些成分。美国食品药物管理局参照RACC这个有代表性的分配比例来评估某些条款。例如，蛋酒的RACC数值是半杯。油炸面包丁是7克，炒鸡蛋是100克。只有对应的RACC数值小于5，才能被标注为“free”，即：脂肪和糖分少于5克，钠含量少于5毫克。此外，食品必须经过处理成"free"的商品，以获得单一的标签。你买不到“无脂肪生菜”，只能是“生菜，无脂肪的食物”。
3.LOW
低含量也是用来定义食品中是卡路里、脂肪和盐分的含量。脂肪要少于3克，卡路里要小于40，才能称为"low"，如果是一顿总量100克的饭，总卡路里不得超过120。另外，饱和脂肪和胆固醇有特别低的价值含量。
4.REDUCED/LESS
有时制造商想要做一个食品的相关声明，不仅仅是标明某些成分中的低含量，而且比通常同类食品的含量还低。一种参照食物应该是相同类型的食品根据数量和降低含量的比值评选出的平均前三名。食物中降低的成分一定要比参照物的中该成分含量还要小25%。
5.LIGHT
Light通常也是被用来评定参考食物的，这是一种非常复杂的组合用来说明不同的成分。例如，如果一种“Light”食物的脂肪中一半以上的卡路里来自脂肪，其单份参考规格中的脂肪就必须减半。如果不到一半的卡路里来自脂肪，那么单份参考规格中的卡路里就要减少1/3。有些食品达到"low"的标准也能贴上"light"的标签。
盐分偏少的食物中，其盐分含量必须偏低至少50%。
6.HIGH
我们的食品标签不仅标榜食品中成分的“低含量”，也要宣传高含量的好东西。高含量就意味着食物中含有日常建议一餐所需营养价值的20%或者更多。
7.GOOD SOURCE
“Good source of“比”high“含量低一点。带有这一标签的食物应该拥有日常建议所需营养价值的10%到19%。
8.MORE
在“大量的”标准之下的是“更多的,” “增强的,” “丰富的,” “有添加的,” “剩余的 ,”和“少量的。
10.HEALTHY
达到”健康“标准，该产品必须满足低脂和含低饱和脂肪酸的脂肪的双重标准，还有另一个钠和胆固醇的标准。它必须拥有至少日常建议所需所有营养价值的10%。
11.NATURAL
对“天然”的界定经过数年的征求意见和评论后，一直也没有达成一致的共识，美国食品药物管理局决定放弃长久以来官方给出的定义。虽然没有发布对“天然”用途的规定，但是管理局赞成普遍的理解，“天然”就是没有经过人工的或是合成的，不会是人们通常被期望的那样添加。
