More and more food companies are coming up with more and more ways to make food cheaper, more convenient to consume, and tastier. With these come new ingredients, skewed nutrition and a lack of understanding for what you are consuming.

When you don’t understand what you are consuming, you are risking your health. For instance: not knowing a bag stating “50 calories per serving” means you have to multiply servings to know the total amount of calories, rather than the common misconception that “per serving” means “per bag”.

As the average food intake increases, so does the perception on what a serving size means. It is surprising that many people find their perception on what a single serving is, turns out to be about two or three servings in reality!

The ability to read food labels is one of the most effective ways to make good food selections. It spells out the amounts and types of nutrients in the food per serving. However, for this label to be helpful and expend its effectiveness, you must be able to understand what it is saying:

Serving Size

States amounts of nutrients per serving. If you follow the serving size, you acquire the amount of nutrients the label states you will get “per serving”.

For example, if you read “one serving equals 5 chips”, and that there are 50 calories per serving, eating 5 chips would give you 50 calories. Eating 10 chips would give you 100 calories, and so on. If the bag says it contains 5 servings, you would take 50 and multiply it by 5 to figure out the total amount of calories you’ve consumed.

Nutrients

The nutrients are generally based on the daily dietary allowance stated (these are usually based on 2,500 or 2,000 calorie diets).

To understand what you are taking in, know that these are based on how the food corresponds to the dietary allowance for a 2,000 calorie diet. If you’ve purchased something different from the 2,000 calorie diet, divide the amount by 2,000 and you will find your nutrient’s % daily value.

Ingredients

A list of all of the items used to produce the product. The list generally begins with the most heavily-used ingredient, and descends into the ingredient least used in the product.

Label Claim

This is the term used for sayings such as “sodium-free!” (Which simply means that it has less than 5 mgs per serving).

Understanding food labels is a very good thing to learn and do. It’s important to take care of your body, by taking notice of what you intake, and rationing it out so it stays at a healthy level. Once you understand how to read food labels, you hold the power to take care of yourself.

Indeed, reading food labels can be very tedious and confusing. Nevertheless, once you get the hang of it, it would be easier for you to watch your diet because you can already control the amount of food that you take.

Control Calories and Make the Best Nutrition Choices

Many people get confused as they are reading food labels. There are many tricky terms that can confuse someone who is trying to control calories, carbohydrates, protein, fiber or fat intake. If you are one of these people, don’t worry. These facts will help you make better nutrition choices.

Understanding Food Terms

Here are the meanings of everyday terms used by food manufacturers. It is important to know what they mean so that you can choose your foods wisely.

FDA – FDA is an abbreviation for the Food and Drug Administration. As part of the United States Department of Health and Human Services the Food and Drug Administration is responsible for food safety regulations. They also regulate drugs, vaccines and medical products. Usually, food labels are regulated through the FDA.

Low Calorie – The FDA defines low calorie as a food that is more than two tablespoons and does not provide more than 40 calories. Check those labels, though! Many low calorie foods are high in fat by percentage.

Reduced Calorie and Light – The FDA considers a food reduced calorie or light if the calories have been reduced by one-third over the original. Once again, these products can be high in fat.

Calorie Free – The FDA says that a product can be labeled calorie free as long as it has less than five calories per serving. If you don’t consume a lot of these products it’s a way to control calories.

Low Fat – The FDA considers a food low fat if it has three grams or less of fat. Watch out, though, these foods can be very high in calories and sugar.

Fat Free – Think fat free means fat free? Think again. The FDA says that if there are fewer than 0.5 grams of total fat per serving a product can be called fat free. So, that fat free product may still contain fat.

Reduced Fat – Reduced fat is regulated as a product that contains 50 percent or less fat of the original food version. It may sound good, but make sure to check the label. Even 50% less can still be more fat than you are willing to ingest.

Fiber – For a healthy diet a person needs about 25 grams of fiber per day. If you haven’t been getting that much be sure to increase your daily intake gradually so your body gets used to it otherwise you may suffer from bloating and gas.

Sodium – I hate food with lots of sodium. Why? It tastes bad to me, it’s probably over processed, it makes me thirsty then when I weigh myself the next day I’ve gained about two pounds of water weight; totally de-motivating. The only time a high sodium snack makes any sense is if I am doing a very long and strenuous workout and I need to keep the electrolytes in balance. Gatorade works as well.

How to Choose

Maybe you just want to eat something really tasty like some chocolate Milano’s. In this case disregard all the label info and just go for the tastiest treat you can find but don’t do this on a regular basis. Maybe limit this behavior to once per month or less.

Look at your goals for eating. Fat and calories are not the only things to consider. You need protein and fiber in your diet too. Also, check the quality of the fat in the product. Unsaturated is better than saturated. And remember that your diet should contain about 25% of the calories from fat. If you don’t eat enough fat you will feel hungry and want to eat more.

Carbohydrates come in different forms too. Some are pure sugar or sugar derivatives such as high fructose corn syrup which I tend to avoid. Choose more complex carbohydrates if possible.

When comparing foods I usually pick the ones with highest fiber, high protein, low sodium and good quality fats and carbohydrates in that order. This usually results in a balanced food choice. If I just need a blast of energy in the middle of a long bike ride, then a high sucrose product or a diluted sports drink works fine.

One comment about serving size, the information printed on the label almost always refers to a single serving size. When I look at the package of nuts I think, gee, only 100 calories, nearly all from fat. However, there are eight servings in the bag. What are the chances I’m only going to eat one serving? Probably zero percent. So that means I’ll probably eat at least half the bag, 400 calories from fat. Get it. Think about how much of the food you are going to eat at one time then decide.

What to Do with the Facts

As you can see, just because a food has a snappy food label on it doesn’t mean that it is 100% great for your diet. Always, always check the Nutrition Facts label with an eye towards finding out the true amount of calories, carbohydrates, protein, fat, fiber and the serving size. Think about what you want out of the food you choose. You have a lot of nutritional choices within product types. Reading food labels to control calories is one way to look at it but there is much more information provided to help you make the best food choice for your current needs.

In my previous article, “Organic, What Does It Really Mean?”, I discussed the definition of organic foods and the requirements for certifying a food as organic. You see many labels on food items, but, in the case of an organic label on a product, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) strictly regulates the use of the term organic relating to the sale of food products.

The USDA has developed the regulations for labeling an organic product based on the percent of organic ingredients in the product. Here are the definitions of the organic label.

Organic: Usually single ingredient foods, such as fruits, vegetables, dairy products, and milk produced conforming to the standards. If the product has multiple ingredients, 95% to 100% of the ingredients must be organic. The 100% organic label means that 100% of ingredients in the product were organically produced. If water and salt are added, that is not part of the count for products.

Made with Organic: If a product contains 70% to 95% organically produced ingredients, it can carry a “Made with Organic” statement on the front of the package.

Less than 70% Organic Products: If a product contains less that 70% of organically produced ingredients, the manufacturer can state this only on the back panel of the product.

If you are in the produce section and are not sure if an item is organic, check the PLU (product look up code) stickers on the fruits and vegetables.

Organic products have a five digit PLU starting with the number 9.
Conventional product have only a 4 digit PLU.
Genetically modified products begin with an 8.

In the next article, I will discuss understanding other food labels relating to their methods of food production.