Reference Daily Intake

The Reference Daily Intake or Recommended Daily Intake (RDI) is the daily intake level of a nutrient that is considered to be sufficient to meet the requirements of 97–98% of healthy individuals in every demographic in the United States. While developed in USA it has been used in other countries though it is not universally accepted.

The RDI is used to determine the Daily Value (DV) of foods, which is printed on nutrition facts labels (as %DV) in the United States and Canada, and is regulated by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and Health Canada respectively.

The Recommended Dietary Allowances (RDAs) were a set of nutrition recommendations that evolved into both the Dietary Reference Intake (DRI) system of nutrition recommendations (which still defines RDA values) and the RDIs used for food labelling. The first regulations governing U.S. nutrition labels specified a % U.S. RDA declaration based on the current RDA values, which had been published in 1968. Later, the % U.S. RDA was renamed the %DV and the RDA values that the %DVs were based on became the RDIs.

The RDAs (and later the RDA values within the DRI) were regularly revised to reflect the latest scientific information, but although the nutrition labeling regulations were occasionally updated, the existing RDI values were not changed, so that until 2016 many of the DVs used on nutrition facts labels were still based on the outdated RDAs from 1968. In 2016 the Food and Drug Administration published changes to the regulations including updated RDIs and DVs based primarily on the RDAs in the current DRI. Larger manufacturers must start using the new labels by July 26, 2018 and all manufacturers must use the new values from July 26, 2019.

Daily Values used by the FDA for the following macronutrients are Daily Reference Values.

FDA issued a Final Rule on changes to facts panel in 2016. New values can be used on labels now, but companies have until July 28, 2018 to be in compliance. In the interim, products with old or new facts panel content will be on market shelves at same time.

The following table lists the old and new DVs based on a caloric intake of 2000 kcal (8400 kJ), for adults and children four or more years of age.

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