Reading Nutrition labels
If you want to eat well and make it simple, then allowing yourself to take a little extra time in the beginning to understand and read the nutrition labels of items you commonly buy at the grocery store is critical to your success.
It’s seriously a bit concerning and strange how drastically different two separate brands of Ranch Dressing can be in the way of ingredients, vitamins and nutrients it will provide you and how many carbs/calories/sugars it will tick towards your daily count.
Everything you put in your mouth is either working toward or against your health and reading the nutrition labels is HOW you figure out what brands to buy that will give you the most bang for your buck (ie: most nutrient dense while staying with in your micronutrients/macronutrient goals and promoting good health rather than chaotic health… you get where I’m going with this).
The FDA recently set about to change its’ approaches to nutrition labels in an effort to help consumers make healthier choices, easier.
But even with new updates and editions - the ultimate goal is to make your trip to the grocery store quick, easy, and full of the healthiest options.
It’s pretty crazy how one bottle of ketchup can have only a handful of easy-to-understand ingredients and no added sugar, while then next bottle has a paragraph of ingredients (many you can’t even pronounce) and up to 4 grams of added sugar per tablespoon! If you’re a ketchup lover, you could easily go over your daily sugar allowance (per the American Heart Association daily sugar allowance recommendation is 25 grams for women and 36 grams for men) - in just one or two meals, thanks to ketchup alone!
But what if that healthier ketchup with no added sugar is also cheaper?!
And you just missed it because you hadn’t got in the habit of reviewing your nutrition food labels. It’s an easy thing disregard - but not any more. Knowing your food labels and how to interpret them can make a huge difference between reaching your health goals versus not. Plus, you check the nutrition labels at your next 2 or 3 grocery trips you’ll start to quickly learn the healthiest, cheapest options - saving you loads of time and money in the long run.
Let’s breakdown a nutrition label and make this whole thing a lot easier on ya, so you know what to look for at your next grocery day (or you can start now by checking food you already have in your kitchen pantry)!
sERVING INFORMATION
At the top of any nutrition label is the serving information. The serving size is the typical amount a person eats or drinks in one setting NOT a recommendation on how much you should eat or drink.
Take note of the serving size before anything else because everything else on the label refers to ONE serving, per the serving size listed. You can ask yourself, am I eating 1/2 a serving, one serving or maybe your actually eating two whole servings.
In this example, one serving size = 10 ounces. In one serving size (or 10 ounces), there is 210 mg of sodium… but if eating two serving sizes, or 20 ounces at once, you would actually be consuming 420 mg of sodium. Eating two serving sizes means you 2x the calories and all other nutrients shown on the label. (So in this example, you would be getting 4 g of fiber if you ate two servings).
2. Calories
We hear about calories a lot when it comes to health and weight loss. If you want to remain within a healthy weight, most people start with counting calories (although there is a lot more to balanced weight than just calories, calories out - more on that in another post). It’s important to maintain a balance between the number of calories you consume and the number you burn, or use throughout your daily activities. Calories are what fuels the body, giving us energy to perform activities from breathing, to walking, to cell metabolism.
One calorie is a unit of measurement used to quantify the amount of energy provided by foods and drinks. When we talk about calories in the context of nutrition, we're actually referring to kilocalories (kcal). One kilocalorie equals the amount of energy required to raise the temperature of one kilogram of water by one degree Celsius.
Basically - measuring calories tell us how much energy you’re getting from whatever it is you’re are consuming. When we don’t use as much energy as we eat, theroretically we gain weight… that’s why people become obsessed with counting calories.
This label shows one serving has 200 calories. If you eat two servings, you’re getting 400 calories. You ate 4 servings?! That’s 800 calories!
We often hear a recommendation that we should eat 2,000 calories per day, this is a very generalized guideline. Your caloric needs may be higher or lower depending on your age, sex, height, weight/weight goals, and activity level. You can get a better estimate of what your daily caloric requirements are here.
3. Daily value
%DV = PERCENT DAILY VALUE.
It’s the percentage of the Daily Value for each nutrient in a serving of food and helps you determine whether a serving of food is high or low in a particular nutrient.
You don’t need to know how to calculate percentages to use the %DV because the label does that math for you by putting all the nutrient numbers (rather those nutrients are weighed in grams, milligrams, or micrograms) on the same scale for the day. The %DV column doesn't total 100% vertically. Rather, the %DV indicates the percentage of the Daily Value for each nutrient present in a serving of the food. It can show whether a serving of food is high or low in a nutrient and reveal how much that serving contributes toward your daily allotment/goals for each nutrient.
Not all nutrients on a nutrition label have a %DV (ie: total sugars and trans fats usually do not.).
General Guide to %DV per the FDA.
5% DV or less of a nutrient per serving is considered low
20% DV or more of a nutrient per serving is considered high
More often, choose foods that are:
Higher in %DV for Dietary Fiber, Vitamin D, Calcium, Iron, and Potassium
Lower in %DV for Saturated Fat, Sodium, and Added Sugars
Example: The Nutrition Label above shows a %DV for soduim to be 15%. If you ate two servings, you would be getting 30%DV of sodium from this one food which would be considered high.
You can use the %DV column to compare different food products - it’s especially fun when you compare the same product but different brands (Heinz Tomato Ketchup versus Primal Kitchen Ketchup). Once you know how to read the nutrition label thoroughly, you’ll be able to quickly choose the product with higher amount of nutrients you want more of and a lower amount of nutrients you’re trying to cut down on.
Another bonus of really understanding what %DV has on your eating habits is - %DV helps cut the crap when reading food labels. A lot of foods now-a-days are slapped with essentially meaningless labels like “light” “low” and “reduced.” Instead of relying on these vague words and trying to memorize their legal meanings to make your decision, check out the %DV column and compare the products using their actual nutrient value rather than a marketing word.
You can use the %DV column to tally up your food for the entire day and make sure you stay within your nutrient goals, for example by making sure your total intake of saturated fat doesn’t exceed 100%DV .
Certain micronutrients you might want more of and others you might need to avoid. Check out these terms when understanding your %DV:
Upper Limit - Eat "Less than"...
Upper limit means it is recommended that you stay below or eat "less than" the Daily Value nutrient amounts listed per day. For example, the DV for saturated fat is 20g (per the FDA). This amount is 100% DV for this nutrient. What is the goal or dietary advice? To eat "less than" 20 g or 100%DV each day.
Lower Limit - Eat "At least"...
The DV for dietary fiber is 28g, which is 100% DV. This means it is recommended that you eat "at least" this amount of dietary fiber on most days. (Click here to learn more)
Some nutrients, you will notice, don’t have a %DV listed on the nutrition label (ie: trans fats, total sugars, and sometimes protein).
Trans fats should overall be avoided since science has shown that trans fats lead to wear and tear on the body and cardiovascular disease due to their propensity to raise “bad”cholesterol levels and lower “good” cholesterol levels.
Protein %DV is only required to be listed if the product has a claim on its’ package, such as “high in protein,” or if the product is intended for kids and babies.
Total Sugar: total sugar included in a nutrition label means all sugar: added and natural. There is no Daily Reference Value established yet, however, the American Heart Association daily sugar allowance recommendation is 25 grams for women and 36 grams for men.
Check out the FDA’s %DV recommendation for common micronutrients.
4. Nutrients
Check out the nutrient portion of your nutrition label to see if a certain food supports your dietary goals and needs.
Nutrients to avoid or eat less of: Saturated Fats, Sodium and Added Sugars. These micronutrients are known to cause inflammation and hormone imbalance when we get too much and the FDA recommends we eat less of these nutrients.
Use the nutrition part of the label to find foods that contain more of the nutrients you want to get more of and less of the nutrients you may want to limit.
You’ll notice there are Total Sugars and Added Sugars listed on the nutrient label. Total sugars include added sugars and naturally occurring sugar (such as those found in fruit or milk). Added sugars are any kind of sugar added to the food during the processing of the food (high fructose corn syrup, dextrose, table sugar, sugars from syrups and honey, sugar from concentrated fruit juices and more). According to the FDA, diets that are high in calories from added sugars can make it difficult to meet daily recommendations of other important nutrient while still staying within your calorie goal. Not to mention a diet high in added sugar is known to cause hormonal imbalances that make it harder to ditch cravings and loose weight.
Nutrients most people should be striving to get more of: Dietary Fiber, Vitamin D, Calcium, Iron, and Potassium.
The average American does not eat enough fiber, Vitamin D, Calcium, Iron or Potassium. A diet with lots of dietary fiber can help lower blood pressure, create regular poops and a happy gut, lower blood glucose and cholesterol levels and help curb cravings while making you feel fuller for longer - ultimately reducing your calorie intake and helping with weight loss.
Diets high in Vitamins and mineral help support good bodily functions, strong bones, healthy strong blood and reduce your risk of high blood pressure and heart disease.
Now the fun part: the ingredient list.
Now that you know how to quickly interpret the nutrient label, you’ll also want to be aware of what to look out for or notice in an ingredient list. Typically you’ll find an ingredient list at the bottom of the nutrient label, sometimes you’ll find it on the side of the nutrient label.
The ingredient list spells out each ingredient used to make the product, listed by weight. The ingredient used the most in the product will be listed first while the ingredient used the least in the product is at the end of the ingredient list.
Check out this example ingredient list for Hostess Twinkies. Sugar is actually the first ingredient, so the heaviest ingredient by weight in your Twinkie is sugar! 🤯😖
Check out this list of common food ingredients you might stumble across but not yet be familiar with here.
Something to watch out for is products that list sugar as one of the first ingredients. The tricky part is, sugar can go by many different names in the food industry. Check out this list for over 71 different names for sugar here.
Overall getting comfortable with reading nutrition labels doesn’t take long, just a little bit of extra effort and practice while starting out. Spend a little extra time during your next grocery trip to weed out food products that don’t support your goals and find brands that do support your goals. It might take a few trips along with some trail and error before you find a healthier alternative that you also truly enjoy the taste of AND that’s not overly processed - but it will all come with time and little bit of patience while you learn your personal art of healthy eating. 💚🥗
Bon appetite!
