Have you ever tried to read a nutrition label and thought you needed help to decipher the information? It is important to be able to know what these labels have listed so you can make educated choices about food for yourself and your family. There are some tricky parts of labeling that manufacturers use and, unfortunately, loopholes that they use to make food appear to be healthier than it is.
1. The first thing to note is that items appear in the order of quantity. So if corn is listed as the first ingredient, that is the ingredient with the highest quantity within the item. If sugar is listed as the second item, it is the second highest ingredient in quantity.
2. When you are looking at serving size, look to see what the serving size is against the portion that is eaten. Most of the time, serving sizes are listed in standard measurement like cups or pieces. So, for instance, if a serving size is 8 pieces and you eat 16 pieces, you have eaten 2 serving sizes of that food and then the calories, fat and other nutrients are doubled.
3. The number of calories shows the amount of calories for one serving of the food item. So if the food item has 250 calories and you eat 2 servings, then you have eaten 500 calories of that specific food.
4. Nutrients should be listed on each food item including the amount of fat (saturated, polyunsaturated and monounsaturated), cholesterol, sodium, total carbohydrates, dietary fiber, sugars, protein, and vitamins/minerals in one serving.
5. There is a footnote at the bottom of each nutritional label that is a reminder that the Percent Daily Values are based on a 2,000 calorie per day diet. It will also include a statement that these values may vary depending on whether someone requires more or less calories.
6. When reading labels, look for whole foods that you can recognize. There is truth to the saying that “if you can’t pronounce it, you shouldn’t eat it”. If you are reading a nutritional label and you are seeing a lot of ingredients with hard-to-pronounce, scientific names then it means that the “food” was created in a lab, not outside in the ground. These ingredients are typically full of preservatives, artificial colors and additives and not found in nature.
7. Hydrogenated ingredients contain trans-fats and should be avoided. Even if a label says “zero trans fats” it could still contain some since FDA regulations allow products with less than 0.5 grams of trans fats PER SERVING to go unlabeled. (watch your peanut butters here and commercially made baked goods) (Pollan, 2009)
8. Be aware of “ingredient splitting” where manufacturers change their ingredient lists to make it appear that certain foods (like sugar) are included in lesser quantities than they actually are. “Ingredient splitting” is defined as the deceptive practice of subdividing a more abundant, yet inferior quality ingredient into smaller portions.
For example, there maybe more than one type of sweetener used (corn syrup, beet sugar, fructose etc.) and if they had just listed sugar, it would have appeared higher on the lists, but with “ingredient splitting” they subdivide the ingredient into smaller portions, therefore allowing it to show up farther down the ingredient list. (Stone, 2011)
Being able to read and understand a food label will help you make an informed choice about what you put into your body. And as a consumer, you need to be educated about the ingredients in your food so that you can make sound and healthy food choices.