 Label Basics
Choosing the most nutritious foods at the supermarket can be tough, especially because so many products sport flashy labels with health claims and seals. An easy way to distinguish the healthiest picks from the rest of the pack is to flip the product over and look at the back, where you'll find the nutrition facts panel and the ingredients list. Starting from the top, use these tips to figure out if a food fits into a healthy diet.
Start with serving size. Many people mistakenly think that one bottle, bag or box count as a single serving, so they finish the whole thing and believe they've consumed the number of calories and fat grams listed on the label. But often times, products contain two or more servings. So take a look at the serving size (for example, 1/4 cup), then figure out how many servings you're having (say, 3/4 cup), and finally, multiply all the information on the label by the number of servings you're eating (in this case, it would be three).
Count calories. The next line of the label will tell you how many calories the product contains per serving. You'll also learn how how many of those calories come from fat, which is interesting information but not as important as knowing which kinds of fat your product contains. To lose weight, most women need to drop to about 1,600 calories daily; men about 1,800. If you're divvying these up among three meals and a snack or two, your calorie allotment would look like this: Meals would be between 400 and 550 calories; snacks would have around 150 to 200. Keep these numbers in mind when deciding whether a food is calorie-appropriate.
Know your nutrients. The next section lists the nutrients your food contains, and for the most part, it can be broken up into nutrients you should limit (saturated fat, cholesterol and sodium) and those that most people don't get enough of (fiber, vitamins, calcium and iron). A few things to keep in mind:
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When it comes to fat, the type of fat is more important that total fat. For example, a product that has 8 grams of fat, 2 grams of saturated fat and 0 grams of trans fat is better than a product that has 6 g total fat, most of which comes from either saturated or trans fat. |
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Cholesterol isn't as important as saturated fat. Studies show the heart-harming fat affects blood cholesterol more than the cholesterol in food. |
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The lower the sodium, the better; try to keep your daily intake under 2,300 milligrams.
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The daily goal for fiber is at least 25 grams for women and 38 grams for men. |
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When you have the choice, go for foods that are higher in vitamins A and C and calcium; iron isn't as important unless you're iron-deficient (most Americans get enough iron). |
You'll notice that the label lists weight measurements (grams or milligrams) for some of the nutrients; many nutrients will also have a percentage on the right-hand side of the label. This number tells you how much of the daily value (or recommended daily amount) for a specific nutrient the product provides. One note: The percent daily value figures are based on a 2,000 calorie diet. If you're eating fewer calories, the numbers will obviously be a little off, but you can use them as a rough guide. Percentage daily value is most useful for sodium and fiber.
You won't see a percentage daily value figure for trans fat, protein or sugar. Ideally, you should have no trans fat in the diet; 2 grams is considered the maximum per day on a 1,600-calorie diet. As for sugar, it gets a little complicated because naturally occurring sugar in fruit and milk is OK, but you should limit  added sugar to about 40 to 45 grams daily on a 1,600- to 1,800- calorie diet. However, parsing out what percent of the sugar in a food is added is impossible. Some groups are lobbying the FDA to require added sugar to be listed on labels, but in the meantime, your only tip-off is the ingredient list and your own common sense. If a product doesn't contain fruit or dairy, then all (or nearly all) of the sugar is added. So, the sugar in candy, cookies and cakes is virtually all added sugar. And when it comes to protein, don't worry. As long as you're getting the recommended levels of dairy and animal or plant protein at each meal, you should be fine. (Our menu plans offer a good guide to protein portions.)
Scan the ingredient list. The nutrition facts panel doesn't always tell the entire story, so don't forget to check the ingredient list. One prime example of this is trans fats. The FDA allows products that have less than .5 g of trans fats per serving to say it contains no trans fat. But you can tell which ones aren't actually trans fat-free by looking for hydrogenated fats or partially hydrogentated oils on the label. Another tip: Ingredients are listed in order of use. So, at the very least, check out the first few ingredients so you have a good idea of what's in your food.
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