Nutrition labels are an important source of information when it comes to foods you purchase, and are essential when trying to make informed choices, to manage health conditions, and to achieve your nutritional goals. These labels help you keep track of nutrients like calories per serving, total sugars, sodium, proteins, saturated fats, and all the various vitamins and minerals. They help you avoid deceptive marketing by giving you actualy quantitative data about the food you are purchasing. By being able to read nutrition labels properly, it empowers you to be able to break down the components of differing products and compare and contrast the nutritional composititon of the food. This can also help you see if there are hidden ingredients that are not directly marketed, or if there are special allergens that you would not otherwise know about. All of these factors combined help you make the proper choice for your own nutritional goals, whatever they may be!
Reading the Nutrition Label
There are many comonents to the nutrition label, and for the uninformed, can be a bit confusing at times. The components of a nutrition label can essentially bre broken down into 4 main parts.
- Serving Information: This is the top part of the nutrition facts, and dictates what a serving of the food actually looks like. There are ways that marketing can give you misleading information by manipulating the serving size. The example here satates that a typical serving of this food is 1/4 cup. That means that all the information listed after it corresponds to a 1/4 cup of the product.
- Calories: The next section of the label is the calories. Calories denotes how much actual energy you are getting from the said food. Remember that this is based on a single serving of the food, not the entire container of food. The general guideline is to consume about 2000 calories per day, but this can vary based on your daily activity levels, your overall body composition, and your age.
- Nutrients: The next sections will contain the actual nutrients, starting with the macronutrient (fat, carbohydrates, and protein) alongside sodium, and then following up with the other micronutrients (vitamins and minerals, sans sodium).
- Total Fat: Total fat is listed out first. Under this category, there are different types of fat to pay attention to. Saturated, trans, polyunsaturated, and monunsaturated fats are the different types of fats. Saturated and trans fats are typically considered and should be minimized at best. Both forms of unsaturated fats are typically considered good and healthy for consumption, and should be prioritzed over other forms of fat. Dietary cholesterol is listed after these fats, and while generally having a minor impact on blood cholesterol levels, it is still recomended that we limit these to under 300mg in a day.
- Sodium: While not a macronutrient, sodium is one of the most important of the microntrients to keep track of. Some processed foods can contain large amounts of sodium and can quickly add up to be well beyond our daily needs. For those with certain health conditions, you will want to keep these even lower.
- Total Carbohydrates: This sections lists out all the forms of carbohydrates that are part of the product. Included in this section is the Dietary Fiber, both soluble and insoluble, total sugar, added sugars, and sugar alcohols. Fiber, while included in the carbohydate section because it is chemically a carbhydrate, does not actually get digested. For those counting carbohydrates, net carbs typically subtracts fiber from total carobhydrates. Similarly, sugar alcohols are also not absorbed by the blood stream and are typically excluded when it comes to net carbs. The main things we want to look out for when it comes to this section is keeping fiber levels high, while keeping added sugars low.
- Vitamins and Minerals: This sections contains all other micronutrients. Only 4 of them are required: Vitamin D, Calcium, Iron and Potassium. All others are optional. The reason for this is that those 4 nutrients are typically the ones that americans do not get enough of, and hence worth of note.
- Percent Daily Value: The percent daily value is there to indicate how much the actual quantity of nutrients equates to in terms of the requirement for our daily diet, calculated off of a 2000 calorie diet. This helps you see how much you actually need, as different nutrients have different requirements. This also helps you eaisly compare different foods and to understand any claims of nutrient being "high" or "low". Typically 5% or below is considered low, while 20% and above is considered high. Below is a showcase of how DV amounts and DV% really look like
|
Nutrient
|
DV
|
%DV
|
Goal
|
|---|---|---|---|
|
Saturated Fat
|
20g
|
=100% DV
|
Less than
|
|
Sodium
|
2,300mg
|
=100% DV
|
Less than
|
|
Dietary Fiber
|
28g
|
=100% DV
|
At least
|
|
Added Sugars
|
50g
|
=100% DV
|
Less than
|
|
Vitamin D
|
20mcg
|
=100% DV
|
At least
|
|
Calcium
|
1,300mg
|
=100% DV
|
At least
|
|
Iron
|
18mg
|
=100% DV
|
At least
|
|
Potassium
|
4,700mg
|
=100% DV
|
At least
|
Ingredients
Ingredients are typically listed below or besides the nutrition facts label. These ingredients are ordered based on weight from highest to lowest, meaning that the order an ingredient is listed actually matters. The first few ingredients on the list should make up the majority of the product. This is also the place to see if there are hidden sugars, as there are various forms that they can take. The list must be complete, barring certain cirumstances (like propietary blends of ingredients), and must include all additives and preservatives. Major allergens are added at the end in bold, including possible allergens due to being processed in the same facility even if it is not part of the ingredients (like nuts or gluten). Typically, a shorter list of ingredients helps you realize that there is less processing happening in the product. You also want to make sure that the first 3 ingredients in a product is some form of whole food.
Variations
Most nutrition labels on the market will be formatted the same way, but there are certain variations that are allowed. All variations of the lables can be seen in the document listed here by the FDA.