Nutrition Rules for Snacks

by Editor
February 2, 2013 at 7:26 am

http://www.smartertimes.com/767/nutrition-rules-for-snacks

A report in the Times about new nutrition rules issued by the Department of Agriculture for snacks in schools is flawed in at least two respects.

First, the online version of the Times article contains no hyperllink to the actual rules. That's just lame. Reports on the same topic by National Public Radio (here) and the Washington Post (here) both carried links to the rules. In 2013, with the Internet in existence, readers who want to learn more about a topic should be able to click and access a primary source document rather than relying on a reporter's summary.

In the case of New York Times readers, access to the primary document would be particularly useful, because the summary provided by the Times reporter is inaccurate. The Times article claims inaccurately that the new guidelines "set minimum requirements for calories and fats allowed." In fact they set maximums, not minimums, for both calories and fats.