Deciphering the Food Label

BY: Tara DelloIacono Thies

The Nutrition Labeling and Education Act requires that nearly all foods have a label. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) regulates food labeling to assure that consumers receive accurate, straightforward information about foods.

The food label can be a useful tool if you know what to look for and how to decipher it. Unfortunately, all the numbers, percents and acronyms can be confusing especially if you are trying to make a quick run the grocery store and want to make healthy choices. In this article, I provide you with tools to easily make healthy food choices.

At a glance

You are on your way home from a long day at work and make a stop at the grocery store. You don’t want this to take long but you want to make good choices. What is the most important information you need to get from a food label?

Serving Sizes

It is important to check serving size and note whether or not this is a realistic serving size for you. If the serving says half cup and it’s likely you will eat one-cup keep that in mind as you read the rest of the pertinent nutrition facts. The nutrition facts are relevant to the serving size listed.

Just the Fat Facts

Down below I’ve listed the main types of fatty acids. You may or may not see all fatty acids listed on a food label. It is important to note that the FDA guidelines do not require monounsaturated, polyunsaturated, or trans fats to be listed on the food label at this time.

Saturated Fats are fats that typically come from animal products and are solid at room temperature, with the exception of palm, palm kernel oil and coconut oil. Examples of saturated fats include butter and lard. These fats contribute to increases in total cholesterol.

Monounsaturated Fat are plant derived fats that are more helpful than saturated fats. In moderate amounts monounsaturated fats will reduce bad cholesterol (low-density lipoproteins) without decreasing the good cholesterol (high-density lipoproteins). Foods high in monounsaturated fat include olive oil, canola oil, nuts, and avocados.

Polyunsaturated Fat are also plant derived and they provide some essential fatty acids and reduce bad cholesterol (low-density lipoproteins), but also decrease good cholesterol (high-density lipoproteins). Foods high in polyunsaturated fat include vegetable oils, corn oil, safflower oil, sunflower oils, and soybean oil.

Trans Fat are fats that are byproducts of hydrogenation and are found naturally in some foods. Trans Fat may also reduce the good cholesterol (high-density lipoproteins) similar in action to polyunsaturated fat.

Calories from fat

This states how many of the total calories in the product come from fat. Really useful information would be what percentage of this food is fat. If you can do some quick division in your head you can figure out these percentages. Here’s how to do it: divide the calories from fat from the total calories and that will give you the percent of calories from fat.

Total Fat Grams

This is the total grams of fat per serving. If you would like to make sure the label is correct you can multiply the total grams of fat by 9 calories/gram to get the total calories from fat.

Generally you want to look for foods with less than 30% of the calories coming from fat. Remember those serving sizes; if your serving size is larger than suggested the amount of fat creeps up!

Carbohydrates and Sodium

Total Carbs: Total carbs include the items listed in lighter print under the Total Carbohydrates. Some labels may list Other Carbs and you will find if you total Dietary Fiber grams, Sugar grams, and Other Carbs grams that it will equal Total Carbohydrate. Other labels may not list the Other Carbs sub category.

Carbohydrates break down in the body to a sugar called glucose. Grains, cereals, pastas, and rice are carbohydrates. Sweeteners such as cane juice, brown rice syrup, and other syrups are also forms of carbohydrates referred to as sugars, which also break down into glucose in the body. This is why the Total Carbohydrate is important because it includes the total grams of product that will break down into glucose (sugar) in the body. While it’s important for everyone to pay attention to the amount of carbs, diabetics, in particular, need to refer to the total grams of carbohydrate when making food choices.

Total Sodium Miligrams (mg): Keep in mind the 2400 mg of sodium is the recommended intake. Foods with less than or equal to 140 mg of sodium are a low salt product. Note that all LUNA bars and Cranberry Apple Cherry, Chocolate Almond Fudge, and Apricot CLIF Bars qualify as low sodium products.

Learning the Lingo

Many labels make claims such as “low fat”, “low sodium”, “low calorie!” These claims are very confusing if you are trying to compare items that say low and the other light. The FDA assigns definitions to these claims. It is helpful to know what they mean and which key words to watch out for when trying to make healthy choices!

Nutrition Claims Per Serving as Approved by the FDA

Please visit www.fda.gov or vm.cfsan.fda.gov/list.html for more details on nutrition claims.

Calorie Free: Less than 5 calories (cals)
Sodium Free: Less than 5 miligrams (mg) sodium
Fat Free: Less than 1/2 grams (g) fat
Low Calorie: 40 cals or less
Low Fat: 3 g of fat or less
Light or Lite: 1/3 fewer cals or 50% less fat
Light in Sodium: 50% less sodium
% Fat Free: Amount of fat by weight
Cholesterol Free: Less than 2 mg cholesterol
Low Cholesterol: 20 mg or less cholesterol
High Fiber: 5 g or more of fiber
Sugar Free: Less than 5 g table sugar, honey, corn sweetener or other sweeteners
No Sugar Added: No sugars added during processing
Reduced Sugar or less sugar: 25% less sugars than a similar food
Reduced, lower, less, fewer: 25% less in a nutrient or in calories

Watch out for words light or reduced. For example, I was in the store buying items for a low fat pizza. Looking at the Canadian bacon I noticed there was a light version. I picked up the original version to do a quick comparison and what had been done to cut 1/3 of the fat and calories form the original Canadian bacon was the serving size had been cut from three slices to two. In this case eating a moderate portion of the original product would have provided me with the same nutrition as the light version. Sometimes adding these words light or reduced has little nutritional effect but could affect the pocket book.

What do all those %‘s really mean?

The percent daily values are semi-useful as an eyeball figure but do not provide you with a lot of clear facts. The Daily Values on food labels are reference numbers established by the FDA. The % daily value (DV) shows how a food fits into a 2000 calorie diet based on current nutrition recommendations. The DVs for fat, carbs, and saturated fat are calorie based and change with varying caloric intake.

For example the DV for fat on Cranberry Apple Cherry CLIF Bar is 3% (current nutrition recommendation for fat is 30% or less of your total calories per day coming from fat). Assuming you eat 2000 calories per day, the Cranberry Apple Cherry CLIF Bar provides 3% of your DV for the day.

If you are consuming more or less than 2000 calories per day these numbers on the food label can be deceiving. You need to adjust the DV for your calorie intake, which may take longer than a quick glance at the food label, allows. If you are in a hurry but are taking a moment to glance at the food label look at grams/milligrams versus percents. DVs for vitamins and minerals do not change with calories and based on the Recommended Daily Intake (RDI).

Calories per Gram

Labels may provide the calories (cals) per gram (g) of fat, carbohydrate, and protein. You may not see this information on the label, if the space is not large enough, but this information is useful if you want to know how many calories come from the specific macronutrients. Using Cranberry Apple Cherry CLIF Bars as an example, we can calculate caloric intake per nutrients:

• Total Fat 2 g x 9 cals/g = 18 cals
• Total Carbohydrate 44 g x 4 cals/g = 176 cals
• Total Protein 8 g x 4 cals/g = 32 cals

Total Calories: 226

Because of FDA approved rounding, the total calories may very slightly on the label.

In Conclusion

Deciphering food labels can seem tedious but if you learn what to look for you can make healthy food choices without bringing a calculator and a guidebook. Remember to look at the key items that are meaningful to your meal plan and pretty soon you will know what to chose without spending a whole lot of time interpreting the label lingo.