What's Really in That Bag of Potato Chips?

HAVING TROUBLE FIGURING OUT THE FOOD LABEL ON your cereal? Low-fat yogurt? Cranberry juice? Relax. Help is on the way. The Bush Administration has unveiled new rules that should help solve the mysteries of what packaged foods really contain. Finalized after weeks of wrangling between the Departments of Agriculture and Health and Human Services, the 4,000 pages of regulations spell out guidelines for labeling the amount of calories, fat and nutrients in everything from potato chips to cans of soup. This boon to the consumer doesn't come cheap. By May of 1994, more than 270,000 food labels must be changed, costing the industry about $2 billion. But, it will be worth the trouble, says HHS Secretary Dr. Louis Sullivan, "The Tower of Babel in food labels has come down, and American consumers are the winners." Still, the new labeling system won't tell shoppers how to create a healthy diet. That's one thing they will have to figure out for themselves.