The whole point of a nutritional label is to help inform you of what’s inside the package. But the recent David protein bar class action lawsuit has brought up a loophole in the Food and Drug Administration’s regulations around nutritional labels that most people aren’t aware of. Basically, there’s a fair amount of wiggle room between what the label says and what you actually get.
In case you haven’t been following the lawsuit, it alleged that independent lab tests discovered that David protein bars contain 400% more fat and 80% more calories than advertised. That sparked comparisons to when Regina George was given “healthy” bars in Mean Girls that made her gain weight. David founder Peter Rahal acknowledged the cultural reference on X, writing, “No one is getting Regina Georged.” (Rahal explained that the confusion came down to how calories were measured—what the human body can absorb and use vs. measuring things like fiber, sweeteners, and fat substitutes that aren’t digestible calories.) The lawsuit was dismissed on Tuesday.
But this still doesn’t mean that your food labels are 100% accurate. FDA regulations for food labels allow for a margin of error for everything from fat, calories, and added sugar to nutrients. How concerned about this should you be? We tapped nutritionists for more.
The FDA’s food label regulations leave a large margin of error.
According to the FDA’s regulations around food labels, there can be a 20% overage with fat, calories, added sugar, carbs, fiber, and sugar alcohols. So, if you’re eating a 200-calorie protein bar, it could contain an extra 40 calories before the FDA would consider intervening.
At the same time, nutrients like fiber, protein, and vitamins can be 20% lower than what’s on the label. Basically, what the label says and what you’re actually ingesting can be pretty different. “Those labels are giving you a big-picture snapshot,” Jessica Cording, RD, CDN, author of The Little Book of Game-Changers, tells SELF. “The nutrient information is a ballpark number.”
The FDA doesn’t pre-approve food labels, which puts the responsibility on manufacturers to be accurate about what’s in their products. That doesn’t mean companies are deliberately trying to fudge their numbers—nutritional information is simply hard to measure precisely.
“Food labeling is based on a mix of lab analysis and database estimates, both of which have variability,” Scott Keatley, RD, co-owner of Keatley Medical Nutrition Therapy, tells SELF. “Ingredients vary by batch, processing changes nutrient composition, and methods have error margins. The FDA builds in a tolerance so manufacturers can comply without constant reformulation or relabeling for minor fluctuations.”
