Does looking at a food label inform you or frustrate you? One common frustration I hear often is not being able to understand a food label. Even if you know how many grams of fat or carbohydrates are in a serving, you may not know how to translate that to your diet. So let’s take a moment to look at the food label and see if it can help you eat healthier.
- Find Serving Size first. This is important because everything else listed on the food label is for that serving size only (not the entire package).
- Calories. This includes total calories in the serving size listed.
- Servings per Container. If you are trying to portion food or buy for a large quantity of people, this helps you determine how many servings a package contains.
- Total Fat. This includes all fat. Food manufacturers are required by law to include total fat and specify how much of the total fat comes from saturated fat and trans-fat. The remaining fat (monounsaturated and polyunsaturated) are not required to be on a food label but can be deduced from subtracting trans fat and saturated fat from total fat.
- Total Carbohydrates. This one gets trickier. There are basically 3 types of carbohydrates: dietary fiber, sugar and starch. Dietary fiber and sugar are required by law to be included on a food label. If you are counting carbohydrates, you want to know the Total Carbohydrates since this will include all three. Dietary fiber just tells you the total fiber but not what type of fiber (soluble versus insoluble). Sugar tells you total sugar but not what type of sugar (natural sugar or added sugar). Fortunately, the new food label must include Added Sugars. This is important if you are trying to limit refined and processed sugars. These tend to have much more impact on health and blood sugar than natural sugars found in fruit or milk for example. This category seems to be the most confusing but can give you lots of detailed information to make better choices.
- Cholesterol, Sodium and Protein must also be listed and these are self-explanatory. A food with less than 140 milligrams of sodium per serving is considered a low sodium food. More than 400 milligrams of sodium per serving is considered high sodium. Dietary guidelines recommend limiting sodium intake to no more than 2,300 milligrams per day.
- Vitamin D, Calcium, Iron and Potassium are the four nutrients Americans are likely to be deficient in and are required to be on the new food label. If a food contains 25% or more of any of these, it is a good source of that nutrient.
- Percent Daily Value or %DV gives a reference for the percentage daily recommended intake of a nutrient one serving provides based on a 2,000 calorie per day diet. Cholesterol, sodium, vitamin D, calcium, iron and potassium are based on standard guidelines whereas fat, protein and carbohydrate depend on the total calories needed. I find this helpful for standard guidelines but not as helpful for fat, protein or carbohydrate unless you know you need 2,000 calories per day.
Lastly, don’t forget to look at the ingredients list. This gives you details about where the protein, fat and carbohydrate come from as well as any common food allergens. I learn much more from reading the ingredients list than I would by just looking at a food label. The next time you are shopping, take a few minutes to read the food label. You might be surprised at what your food contains. If you found this article helpful, please share with others and feel free to leave comments. To good health and happy eating!
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