Since 1994 food manufacturers have been required by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to include food labels (or Nutrition Facts labels) on product packaging so that consumers have accurate nutritional information about the food they purchase. But food labels are more than just a federal requirement once you understand the information they provide, you can use food labels as a guide to planning healthier meals and snacks. First things first you must always read the ingredients. Keeping in mind that the ingredients are listed in order of most abundant to least abundant. So if your very first ingredient is wheat and your second is sugar or some form of sugar (ie. High fructose corn syrup), and you are trying to stay away from wheat products and cut your sugar intake then this is a food you want to avoid. The next step is to read the Nutrition facts. Below is an example of a label and the sections.
Serving Size: The serving size is very important to know, this gives you the scale used to measure the nutritional values, all the information on the label is based on one serving. You will need to determine how many servings you want to eat. So take a look at the example again. All the values are based on a serving but if you were to eat the whole box all the values would need to be multiplied by two because there are two servings total per box.
Calories: This part of the label provides the calories per serving and the calories that come from fat. If you need to know the total number of calories you eat every day or the number of calories that come from fat, this section provides that information. In this example there are 250 calories in a one-cup serving of macaroni and cheese. And 44% of the calories come from fat which I calculated simply by dividing the calories from fat 110 into the total 250. Looking at the calories from fat is very helpful in determining if a food is low fat or high fat. As a rule if 20% or less of the calories come from fat then the food is low fat. If greater than 40% calories come from fat this is a high fat food.
A calorie is a unit of energy produced by food. Each gram of fat provides 9 calories, each gram of carbohydrates or sugar provides 4 calories, and each gram of protein provides 4 calories. They add them al up and round off to determine the total calories.
Nutrients: There are 6 nutrients that our bodies need; fat, carbohydrates, protein, vitamins, minerals and water. This sections on the label highlighted in yellow shows the names of 4 nutrients and the amount of that nutrient provided by one serving of food. In our example, one serving of macaroni and cheese contains 12 grams of fat, 30 milligrams of cholesterol (which goes in the fat category), 470 milligrams of sodium (which goes in the mineral category), 31 grams of carbohydrate and 5 grams of protein. This section of the label will help you determine how many serving you will eat. In the example the macaroni is a carbohydrate food because most of the calories come from carbs. Therefore determine your serving size based on how many grams of carbs you need.
A quick word about fat…Saturated fat increases the risk of arthrosclerosis and therefore should be limited in the diet. Mono and polyunsaturated fats are known as the “good fats” and benefit the body by providing building blocks for cells thorough out the body. Finally trans fats are now listed on the labels. Trans fats should be avoided because they not only increase the risk of arthrosclerosis but have been shown to increase the bad cholesterol. Just because a label says there are zero grams of trans fat doesn’t mean that it is free of trans fat. Read the ingredients if there are hydrogenated oils listed that food has trans fats. By law they must only list it if one serving has more than a half a gram of that nutrient.
On the right side of the label, you'll see a column that lists percentages that are highlighted in purple. These percentages refer to the percent daily values (%DV). Percent daily values tell you how much of something, whether it's fat, sugar or vitamin A, one serving will give you compared to how much you need for the day based on a 2,000 or 2,500 calorie a day diet. This information may be useful if you are comparing to products and want to get one with more or less of a specific nutrient.
Vitamins, Minerals:
The light purple part of the label lists nutrients, vitamins and minerals in the food and their percent daily values. By law they must list 2 vitamins and 2 minerals on every label unless label is to small or there are zero vitamins and minerals in the food.
What's In The Footnote? Below the asterisk sign (*) at the bottom of the label, you’ll see the key nutrients listed and how much you should eat, depending on your calorie intake.
Common Mistakes to Avoid When Reading a Food Label
Until you become accustomed to reading food labels, it's easy to become confused. Avoid these common mistakes when reading labels:
A label may say that the food is reduced fat or reduced sodium. That means that the amount of fat or sodium has been reduced by 25% from the original product. It doesn't mean, however, that the food is low in fat or sodium. For example, if a can of soup originally had 1,000 milligrams of sodium, the reduced sodium product would still be a high-sodium food.
Don't confuse the % DV for fat with the percentage of calories from fat. If the % DV is 15% that doesn't mean that 15% of the calories comes from fat. Rather, it means that you're using up 15% of all the fat you need for a day with one serving (based on a meal plan of 2,000 calories per day).
Fiber is not included in the total carbohydrates. The total carbs represents the sugar which is usually listed and the complex carbs.
A common mistake people make, especially with packages dispensed from vending machines, is to assume that a small item contains one serving just because the package is small. If you eat a bag of pretzels from a vending machine, for example, you may find that it contains 2.5 servings. So you need to multiply the numbers by 2.5 to figure out how many calories and the amount of sodium and other nutrients you are eating.
I hope this quick overview gave you a better understanding of how to read nutritional labels and make decisions about the foods you are eating. The most important thing when meal planning is to eat choose foods that are nutrient dense so that you provide your body with the energy and building blocks it needs to be healthy. Now that you have a better working knowledge of how to read labels you are one step closer to Abundant Health.
