Food labels are widely noticed but not always used in the same way. In the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s 2019 survey, 87% of adults said they ever look at the Nutrition Facts label on food packages. The figures below show which information people seek, how they interpret it, and how label use varies across groups. They also cover restaurant disclosures, major allergens, and a recent FDA imported-seafood net-weight assignment.
Contents
- How often consumers use Nutrition Facts labels
- Which nutrients and label elements people check
- Understanding and trusting label information
- Ingredient lists and front-of-package claims
- Differences in label use across demographic groups
- Restaurant and menu labeling
- Allergen and net-weight labeling enforcement
How often consumers use Nutrition Facts labels
The FDA’s Food Safety and Nutrition Survey—2019 Survey measured both occasional and routine label use among U.S. adults. The 87% who said they ever look at Nutrition Facts labels indicate broad exposure to the panel, but the more specific buying behaviors were less frequent.
When buying a food product for the first time, 20% said they always use the Nutrition Facts label, while 29% said they use it most of the time. These answers describe reported behavior for a first purchase in 2019; they do not mean that the remaining respondents never read labels.
Among surveyed label users, 40% said they often use Nutrition Facts information to compare different food items. Another 45% said they often use it to get a general idea of a food’s nutritional content. Half—50%—said they often use it to judge how high or low a food is in calories, salt, vitamins, or fat.
Together, these measures show three practical uses: comparing products, forming a broad impression, and evaluating particular nutrient levels. They are separate survey responses, so they should not be added together or treated as mutually exclusive groups.
Which nutrients and label elements people check
Calories were the most commonly reported item among the listed Nutrition Facts elements. In the 2019 FDA survey, 60% of surveyed label users said they usually look at calories. Total sugars followed at 52%, sodium at 49%, and serving size at 48%.
The other reported elements were checked at the following rates:
| Nutrition Facts element | Label users who usually look at it |
|---|---|
| Calories | 60% |
| Total sugars | 52% |
| Sodium | 49% |
| Serving size | 48% |
| Total fat | 43% |
| Number of servings | 39% |
| Added sugars | 34% |
| Total carbohydrate | 33% |
| Saturated fat | 30% |
| Cholesterol | 30% |
| Dietary fiber | 26% |
| Trans fat | 23% |
The pattern puts energy, sugars, sodium, and serving context near the top of reported attention. Serving size and number of servings are distinct: 48% usually looked at serving size, compared with 39% who usually looked at the number of servings. The survey also found that 33% of label users looked at both gram or milligram amounts and percent Daily Value amounts.
These percentages describe what surveyed label users said they usually look at. They do not measure whether a person correctly interpreted each value or whether the product choice changed afterward.
Understanding and trusting label information
The FDA survey included questions about interpretation and perceptions, not only whether people looked at a label. When shown a displayed 7% Daily Value for fat, 63% of U.S. adults correctly interpreted it as 7% of the total fat they should eat per day.
In another interpretation question, 57% classified a displayed 25% Daily Value of sodium as high. The two questions use different label examples and measure different judgments, so their results are not directly interchangeable.
Respondents also expressed generally favorable views of Nutrition Facts information. In 2019, 71% agreed that the information was useful to them, 68% agreed that using it helped them make better food choices, and 64% agreed that it was easy to understand. Meanwhile, 57% agreed that the information was believable, and 42% strongly agreed that they were interested in the Nutrition Facts label.
The results suggest that usefulness and perceived help were more widely reported than strong interest. They also leave room for a gap between confidence and demonstrated interpretation: 64% agreed that the information was easy to understand, while the separate 7% Daily Value question had 63% correct interpretation.
Ingredient lists and front-of-package claims
Nutrition Facts panels are only one part of package labeling. When buying a food product for the first time, 45% of surveyed adults said they often check the ingredient list, according to the FDA’s Food Safety and Nutrition Survey—2019 Survey.
Several package statements had already been seen by large shares of U.S. adults in that survey. The reported figures were 88% for a “no added sugar” statement, 87% for an organic statement, 75% for a non-GMO statement, and 64% for a “raised without antibiotics” statement.
Visibility and purchase influence were measured separately. A front-of-package “no added sugar” statement would make 52% of surveyed adults more likely to purchase the product. The corresponding figures were 45% for a “low sodium” statement and 23% for a “gluten-free” statement.
These findings do not establish that a claim caused a purchase, nor do they establish that respondents used the claims in a legally identical way. They show reported exposure to statements and reported likelihood of purchase under the survey’s hypothetical wording.
Differences in label use across demographic groups
The FDA’s Food Labeling: Front-of-Package Nutrition Information report presents 2019 Food Safety and Nutrition Survey (FSANS) comparisons. The figures below are reported label use rates, not estimates of why groups differed.
| Respondent characteristic | Lower or comparison group | Higher or comparison group |
|---|---|---|
| Sex | Male: 84.5% | Female: 90.2% |
| SNAP benefits | Receiving: 77.5% | Not receiving: 88.6% |
| Location | Rural: 77.0% | Urban: 89.3% |
| Education | Less than high-school degree: 82.2% | College graduates: 93.4% |
| Annual income | Below $25,000: 79.9% | $100,000 or more: 94.3% |
| Age | 18–30: 86.5% | 71 or older: 86.6% |
The widest listed difference is between respondents with annual income below $25,000 and those with income of $100,000 or more: 79.9% versus 94.3%. Education also shows a large spread, from 82.2% among respondents with less than a high-school degree to 93.4% among college graduates. Rural and urban respondents reported 77.0% and 89.3%, respectively.
Age was nearly identical in the two listed endpoints: 86.5% for respondents aged 18–30 and 86.6% for respondents aged 71 or older. Sodium checking also differed little by sex: 57.0% of male respondents usually looked for sodium, compared with 55.6% of female respondents.
Correct interpretation of percent Daily Value showed a larger education difference. It was reported for 36.0% of respondents with less than a high-school degree and 74.3% of respondents with postgraduate degrees. This is an interpretation measure, not simply a measure of whether someone reported looking at a label.
Restaurant and menu labeling
Food labeling also appears outside packaged-grocery aisles. When ordering at restaurants in the 2019 FDA survey, 4% of surveyed adults said they always see calorie information on menus or menu boards, while 51% said they sometimes see it. Separately, 37% said they use menu calorie information to decide what to order.
Among surveyed adults, 31% said they use menu calorie information to avoid ordering high-calorie items, and 14% said they use it to choose a smaller portion size. These are reported uses and can overlap; the portion-size figure is not a subset that can be subtracted from the broader ordering figure without additional data.
Other restaurant disclosures were also measured. Seventy percent of surveyed adults had seen a raw-or-undercooked-food risk statement on a restaurant menu or menu board. Fifty-two percent had seen restaurant health inspection scores or grades posted. The survey records whether respondents had seen these disclosures, not whether they remembered or acted on them.
Allergen and net-weight labeling enforcement
Allergen labeling has a specific legal history. The FDA’s Food Allergies information states that the eight major allergens identified when the Food Allergen Labeling and Consumer Protection Act was passed accounted for 90% of food allergies and serious allergic reactions in the United States. That is a 2004 source-period fact and should not be read as a current prevalence estimate.
Sesame became the ninth major food allergen under U.S. law, with the labeling change effective January 1, 2023. The addition changes the legal list of major allergens; it does not mean the earlier 90% figure has been recalculated to include sesame.
Net-weight declarations are another part of label compliance. In the FDA’s Sample Collection and Analysis of Imported Frozen Seafood for Economically Motivated Adulteration: Year 2022–24, 10 of 28 imported packaged frozen-seafood samples were found violative for short weighting caused by declared net-weight problems. That is 36% of the assignment’s samples, which covered 12 unique firms in four countries during the 2022–2024 assignment period.
The 10 violative samples had short-weight percentages ranging from 2.3% to 9.9%. All 10 resulted in refusal of entry for the shipment into U.S. commerce. These results describe the sampled assignment and should not be generalized to all imported seafood or all packaged foods. They do show why the declared quantity on a package is an enforceable labeling detail alongside ingredient and allergen information.