Understanding the 2000 Calorie Standard: Why is 2000 calories the standard?
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4 min read
In the early 1990s, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) implemented the Nutrition Labeling and Education Act, which required a standard reference for the 'Percent Daily Values' on food packaging. This led to the adoption of 2,000 calories as the benchmark for nutrition labels, a figure derived from averaging self-reported caloric intake data from surveys by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA).
