Learning to Read Nutrition Labels Part 1

Nutrition labels are a funny thing. They are supposed to help us make informed choices about what we are eating yet they are no help to anyone when we cant read them! I am going to take you through a few simple ways to read a nutrition label quickly and effectively.

The following information applies per 100g of the food. This is a VERY general yet quick and easy way to pick out a healthy food choice.

Fat: No more than 10g of saturated fats

Sugar: No more than 10g of sugars

Sodium: No more than 400mg of sodium

Now, it gets a little more complicated..... Take a look at the following nutrition label as an example:

Energy per 100g is 2351 kj

Protein per 100g is 8.4 g

Fat, Total per 100g is 40g

- saturated 24.1g

Carbohydrate per 100g is 38.8g

-sugars 32.9 g

Sodium per 100g 0.3mg

See how Carbohydrates has 2 parts? It will give a total carbohydrate count and then one specifically for simple sugars. Eg:

Carbohydrate 38.8 g (per 100g)- TOTAL VALUE

- Sugars 32.9 g (per 100g) - HOW MUCH OF THE TOTAL IS MADE UP OF JUST SUGAR

So we can see that majority of the carbohydrate value from this product comes straight from pure simple sugars. (Note: all carbohydrates are broken down to sugars eventually but if they are already broken down into sugars they enter our bloodstream more rapidly...) So we can see that this product is about 32% sugar.

Now, we look at fats which also has 2 parts - a total value and a value for saturated fats. Some labels will now even show you how much trans fats, polyunsaturated and monounsaturated fats (the latter two being 'good' fats) are in the product.

In this case there is approx. 24g of saturated fats per 40g of total fat meaning that 50% of the fat type in this product is saturated fat.

Now lets look at the protein component. There is 8.4g of protein in this product per 100g. This means there is less than 10% protein in this entire product.

The sodium level here is very low at only 0.3mg per 100g so lets ignore sodium for the moment.

Looking at the total we can see that this product is:

8% protein

40% fat

32% sugar

The total kilojoule value of this product is 2351kj (per 100g). To convert that into calories we simply divide it by 4. So per 100g there is 587 calories!

So is this product healthy? Well, considering that out of the 587 calories consumed majority will be from fat and sugar I would suggest not. Remember, its not necessarily just about the calories but its more where those calories are from.

I hope this has helped you understand the basic nutrition label. Stay tuned for part 2 to discover the next step to being a nutrition savvy label reader! Its not just about the numbers on the nutrition panel!!

PS. I will give a gold star to the person who can guess what food product was used in the example here.....any takers???