It’s probably a combination of things but with this new wave of health enthusiasts, transparency has been a big topic for the labels.
My guess though is it’s more about recipe tweaks or realizing they had their label wrong (which is not uncommon especially if you add up the calories of the Fat, Proteins, and Carbs and will often find it doesn’t match the total calories labeled).
i wonder if shrinkflation comes into play. yesterday at the grocery store i saw sniker bars and they looked smaller. Let say a pack of 2 muffins, with lets say 4 servings. they shrink it 5%… i doubt the number of servings will change, however the nutritional facts might.
I would focus more on getting away from those processed ‘things’ you mentioned while trying to understanding that the more processed the things are that you ingest, the more chances for them to be adulterated in a way to have a negative effect on your health. The changes in the labeling regulations are probably to blame for the differences you state.
The last big update was in 2016. However, there was a good amount of consumer backlash encouraging the nutrition facts panel (NFP) to be more reflective of the actual package size. For example - for example, for a bag of chips with two servings- the NFP should reflect eating the whole bag as that would be the consumer habit. Hence, the serving size might have changed