Interpreting Food Labels

More than ever before, you do yourself and your family a favor when you know how to interpret food labels. It’s unfortunate, but you aren’t careful in the way you read food labels, you can really deceive yourself. This can be particularly dangerous if you’re a diabetic, battling high blood pressure or high blood cholesterol, or a dealing with a heart condition.

Okay, so let’s take a look at the information you’ll find on a food label. What you’re really most interested in reading is the Nutrition Facts section. This should contain basic information such as calories, fat calories, total fat, cholesterol, sodium, total carbohydrates, dietary fibers, sugars, proteins, and ingredients.

The single most important piece of information that people tend to overlook on this label is the serving size. Too often, manufacturers will reduce the serving size in order to make the rest of the information on the label appear in a better light. For instance, if you’re reading the label of a candy bar and see there’s only 100 calories, you’ll probably react possitively. However, if you read the serving size and discover that there are four servings in the bar, then suddenly the calorie count jumps to 400 if you consume the entire candy bar.

Always, check the serving size first.

Not only does serving size affect the calorie count, it affects the count of every other nutritional listing on the label. Keep this in mind as you read the rest of the food label. If there are four servings in the package, then you’ll want to multiply the total fat, cholesterol, sodium, total carbohydrates, dietary fibers, sugars, and proteins by four.

Unfortunately, the list of ingredients does not include quantities. However, the list is arranged from first to last, the greatest quantity (by weight) to the smallest quantity. So the most used ingredient on the list will appear first, while the least used ingredient will appear last.

One last point about interpreting food labels … label claims, such as sodium-free, do not necessarily mean that the item has no sodium. It means that it has very little sodium (in this case, less than 5 milligrams per serving). Another example, might be fat content. If an item is listed as low fat, this means that it contains 3 grams of fat or less.

As you can see, food labels can be misleading if you aren’t careful. Take the time to look them over closely before making a decision to purchase. The more you know, the better your decisions will be.

Related posts:

1. Foods That Lower Blood Pressure
2. The Cause of Food Allergies
3. Metabolism: Can You Control It?
4. How To Instantly Stop Those Food Cravings