Understanding Food Labels

Top Tip Thursday : Today we will discuss how to read and understand a food lab. This is a very important part of getting healthy and having a cleaner diet.

(picture source: imagetekdigitallabels.com, accessed on 25/04/2017)

There are five main aspects to consider, each section has different information to look out for as well as little notes to help you have a complete understanding of each section. These five sections are as follows:

Point 1 - Serving information: This part will always be at the top of the label. It will show you the size of a single serving and the total number of servings per unit.

Note: Pay attention to the serving size, especially how many servings there are in the food package. **why?

Point 2 - Calories: As stated in section one's notes pay attention to the calories per serving and how many servings you are really consuming (generally companies will have more than one serving per unit). so if you eat three servings you will have to multiple the all the calories and nutrients by three.

Note: A general guide to knowing if a food is high or low in calories is as follows:

• Low - 50 calories

• Moderate - 120 calories

• High - 400+

Point 3 - Watch these Nutrients: Here you are looking at the Total Fat, saturated fats, trans fats, cholesterol, sodium and sugars. You need to check the label for these carefully as large quantities are really bad for your health. Health experts recommend that you should keep your intake of saturated fats, trans fats and cholesterol to a minimum as part of a nutritionally balanced diet.

Note: Eating too much can be detrimental to your health and can lead to cancer, chronic diseases, heart diseases or high blood pressure, so make sure to watch the amounts that are in your foods. Here are some examples of nutrients you need to watch and their daily values based on a 2000 calorie diet, for adults and children over the age of four:

• Total fat- 65 grams (g)

• Saturated fatty acids - 20 grams (g)

• Cholesterol - 300 milligrams (mg)

• Sodium - 2,400 milligrams (mg)

Point 4 - Get more of these Nutrients: You need to be eating more of these nutrients, they will be beneficial to your health. Protein, dietary fiber, iron, calcium and any of the vitamins are the good nutrients that you should be looking out for on food labels.

Note: Eating more of these nutrients will be very beneficial for your health, these nutrients will help you reduce the risk of some diseases and conditions.

Here are a few examples of nutrients you need to eat more of and their daily values based on a 2000 calorie diet, for adults and children over the age of four:

• Dietary Fiber-25 grams (g)

• Protein - 50 grams (g)

• Vitamin A - 5,000 International Unit (IU)

• Vitamin C - 60 milligrams (mg)

• Calcium - 1000 milligrams (mg)

• Iron - 18 milligrams (mg)

Point 5 - Daily Values: This part of the label is great for finding out what's in the packet, it gives you the % daily values of the nutrients per serving. This a great tool to have when you know how to use it as it will help you tell which foods are best for you by helping you know in percentage each nutrient and how much of that nutrient you need daily.

Note: That the % daily values are based on a 2000 calorie diet. Your diet may be higher or lower based on exercise or goal.

Learning how to read a food label is great but don't get hung up on it. Now you have the basic understanding too know what will set of alarm bells and what will give you the green light. You now have the information so go off and use your new knowledge.