There are many articles that talk about how to read food labels. The most extensive probably being at the FDA’s website. But I personally think that is a bit long to go through, and I have my own views on what is most important and what things to watch for. Hope you find this useful.
The first place to start is at the top of the label because this gives you the serving size and servings per container. Now this is fairly important information because it is what everything else on the label is based on. Sometimes the serving size is very easy to understand like 1 slice of bread, or 3 cookies; however, other times it is not quite so easy to know how much ½ cup of cereal really is. So if you really want to see how much a “serving” is, measure it out for yourself. You may be surprised just what the label considers a serving. One more important thing to watch for is occasionally something that looks like it would be sold as single serving is not actually considered the serving size on the label. An example that I have seen before is a bottle of soda that would most likely be drunk all at once as a single serving but according to the label would contain more than one serving. So be aware what the label is really referring to and take that into consideration when looking at the rest of the label.
Next down the label, you have the total Calories per serving and the amount of Calories from fat per serving. A little explanation of what calories are. A calorie is actually a unit of measure for energy, and is defined as the amount of energy required to raise the temperature of one gram of water by one degree Celsius. And the ‘calories’ on a food label actually refers to 1,000 calories or a kilocalorie and should actually be written with a capital ‘C’ to distinguish it from a single calorie, but doesn’t always happen. But basically a Calorie on the food label refers to how much energy the food can provide. And people ‘count’ calories because if you take in more energy than your body needs, it most commonly stores the unused energy as fat.
Back to the food label we have total Calories per serving and the amount of Calories from fat per serving. This really gives you an idea of how many Calories you are eating, but again you need to know how many servings you are actually eating. The amount of Calories coming from fat can give you a rough estimate of how much fat is in each serving, but you also have this information below on the label. If you do use the Calories to estimate the amount of fat, something to remember is that each gram of fat has 9 Calories, while each gram of carbohydrate and protein only has 4 Calories. So even though something can have many more grams of carbohydrate and protein than fat the proportion of Calories coming from fat can still be quite high.
In the next part of the label, you have the amount of different nutrients in grams per serving. You also have a percentage next to them for the percent of the daily value, which we will talk about a little later. The first nutrients listed are fat, cholesterol and sodium; which are recommended to be limited. This is because the average American is eating enough or too much of each. Now just to be clear fat, cholesterol, and sodium are not bad. You would die without them, but eating too much of them can be bad. There is nothing wrong with eating foods that have fat in them, but overall for an adult you want to have about 20-35% of your total Calories coming from fat. You do want to limit trans-fat as much as possible and not get too much saturated fat.
I will make a quick note about cholesterol. Cholesterol intake can be quite controversial and I personally think the recommendation to limit intake below 300mg to not be as important as other recommendations. This is because for the majority of people, the body will adjust the amount of cholesterol we make according to our dietary intake. Cholesterol only comes from animal products not plants. So if a label of something like cooking oil is touting that it is “cholesterol free,” it is naturally that way not because of something amazing the manufacturer did.
Then there are more nutrients listed including dietary fiber, sugars, and then vitamins and minerals. Dietary fiber and vitamins and minerals are the nutrients in general that are recommended to get enough of because the typical American diet doesn’t do so great here. In reference to fiber, a rule of thumb is whole grains and less processed food will typically have more fiber in them. It is recommended that adults get 25g/day for women and 38g/day for men. This is not as difficult as it sounds if you eat enough fresh fruits and vegetables that are also high in fiber.
The vitamins and minerals may have actual amounts listed per serving or may just have a percent of the daily value. Now we will talk a little more about the percent daily value. Each label is required to have a footnote telling about the percent daily value and that the percentages refer to a 2,000 Calorie diet. This can be kind of confusing because some of the values will change with the amount of Calories that you are supposed to take in while others do not change no matter how many Calories you are supposed to be taking in. For example, the main macronutrients (fat, carbohydrate, and protein) percentages are based on how many Calories you are taking in while other values like cholesterol, sodium, vitamins, and minerals are recommended to be above or below a certain level no matter how many Calories you eat. And a 2,000 Calorie diet is not best for everyone, so I would not use these values to figure exactly what percentages you are supposed to be taking in for fat, protein and carbohydrate.
On the other hand they can be useful as a rough comparison between different products because on all labels the percent daily values are for a 2,000 Calorie diet. So when comparing between products a higher percentage value means there is more of that nutrient per serving, but again make sure you are comparing comparable serving sizes to make sure you are making a good comparison.
The food label also contains a list of the ingredients. This may be located above the nutrition facts or below. The list of ingredients is listed in order of weight of each ingredient. Therefore, the ingredient that is most predominant by weight is first in the list and then the next predominant by weight is listed second and so on. It is good to be aware of what the ingredients are most prevalent to know what you are really eating. If you think you are eating apples but ‘apples’ is not the first ingredient you would probably be better off eating something else.
I hope you have found this little guide on reading food labels helpful!
