Jazzed about Caffeine Labeling

Have you even handed your already-exuberant child a cold beverage or a chunk of your energy bar and discovered too late it was chock-full of caffeine? I generally check for suspect ingredients, but every once in a while miscalculate due to the lack of standardized caffeine labeling. So I’ll agree with the folks, including those sometimes-misguided souls at Center for Science in the Public Interest, that think FDA should add caffeine to the list of “nutrients” that appear on a food or beverage label.

An article about the buzz surrounding caffeine labeling in the Los Angeles Times gives the pros and cons of such a proposal. And while there is some validity to concerns about variances in natural caffeine (and yes the horror of the cost of testing and relabeling caffeine-containing products), as a consumer, a food scientist and a habitual insomniac I’ll champion the cause. I appreciate the companies that currently take the voluntary approach, but if it’s not a universal mandate it’s hard to know if the manufacturer merely passed the guarana berry over the mixer or dumped a truckload in.

I know plenty of people love the effects of caffeine, but other than a cup or two of coffee to jumpstart my brain in the morning, I’m not one of them. Not really knowing what I’m consuming in terms of caffeine just sort of gives me the jitters.

   -Lynn A. Kuntz