"Green Nutrition" Labels May Be Next in Store

I'm a huge fan of nutrition labels on my packaged food. That way, I can compare potential purchases by lowest calories, lowest fat, and highest percentage of vitamins, minerals, and fiber (and drive all my friends crazy who just want tasty eats). I also adore it when grocery stores break down the price per quantity of packaged food item so I know when I get the best deal (otherwise I have to stand there trying to work it out in my head, which just annoys all the other shoppers trying to scoot by me in the store aisle). In any case, Professor Tim Lang, the guy who came up with the concept of "food miles" -- pointing out that the further your food has to be transported, the more energy you waste -- has devised another fantastic shopping tool: the Green Nutrition label. With it, rather than merely shopping based on nutritional value and price, you can throw into the mix such factors as carbon footprint, packaging levels, fair trade, water use, and more. All environmental factors would be rated using a standard system so that shoppers would be better able to judge if purchasing a fair trade bag of coffee from Costa Rica is better or worse than buying a bag of organic coffee from Hawaii. Ooh! I'm so excited!