How to Read a Food Label - a Comprehensive Guide
Food labels can seem perplexing, and people often read them with an eye toward different things. Whether you are looking to limit your sugar, cut calories or increase your fiber intake, this guide will help you make sense of the numbers, ingredients and nutritional information packed onto that tiny box. Read on for the information you need to get through the supermarket with ease.
Understanding the nutrition information and ingredients list can help you make healthier choices.
What to Look For
Pull a container of food from the supermarket shelf, or grab the nearest box from your cupboard, pantry or desk. Flip it over or on its side. Welcome to the Nutrition Facts panel. Good news: You’ve now taken Step 1 of this guide, which is to make a habit of this little gymnastics routine. If you look at nothing else on the package, look at the Nutrition Facts panel. Knowing how to read the Nutrition Facts panel comes down to quantity and quality. “How much?” and “Of what?”
What's Listed?
- Serving Size: The amount of the product typically consumed at once.
- Calories: The number of calories, or energy, provided by a single serving. 2,000 calories is the average daily reference amount, based on the caloric intake recommended for the average person - though the exact amount per person is based on factors like age, activity level, height, weight and other health goals.
- Percent Daily Value. The Daily Value is how much of a given nutrient you should either aim to reach (for example, dietary fiber) or keep below (like sodium). Knowing how much of that amount is in a given food can help you keep track.
- Nutrients: Fats, carbohydrates, protein and cholesterol, as well as select vitamins and minerals.
Targets to Keep in Mind
If you're only going to read one section of this guide, this is the one to focus on. The following reference points are good context to keep in mind when you first look at a food label, otherwise it can be difficult to know whether a given food offers a lot or a little of something you’re trying to dial up or dial down.
The average American adult is encouraged to aim for the following numbers for daily consumption. These are the most important to pay attention to:
- Calories: likely, you should be aiming to eat around 2,000 a day.
- Saturated fat: less than 20 grams. Rather than merely trying to keep this number as low as possible, what’s most important is what you replace it with: Aim for healthy unsaturated fats (like olive oil), whole grains, fruits and vegetables.
- Trans fat: 0 grams. Trans fat is no longer “generally recognized as safe” by the F.D.A. - June 18, 2018, was the deadline for manufacturers to eliminate artificial sources of trans fat from all new food products sold in the United States. The World Health Organization called for the same worldwide by 2023. Products created before June 18 of this year have until January 1, 2020 to comply.
- Sodium: While the Daily Value is 2,300 mg, the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, the Center for Science in the Public Interest and others urge the government recommendation to be lowered to 1,500 mg. This is about 2/3 teaspoon of salt. Over 70 percent of our sodium intake comes from food eaten away from home (processed or prepared foods from the grocery store, or food from restaurants), so along with added sugar, this is one of the most important things to check on the Nutrition Facts panel.
- Added sugar: While the Daily Value is 50 grams, the American Heart Association recommends keeping it to 25-36 grams per day:
- Men: 9 teaspoons = 36 grams = 150 calories
- Women: 6 teaspoons = 25 grams = 100 calories
On average we consume way too much sugar - more than 82 grams per day.
- Dietary fiber: 28 grams. This has been deemed a “nutrient of public health concern” because of the health risks associated with low intake and the fact that the vast majority of us don’t get enough. Fiber is important for overall digestive health, so inadequate intake can lead to constipation and other bowel problems; it may also make you not feel as full, which can lead to excess calorie intake and potential weight gain.
Other information
- Total fat: The Food and Drug Administration continues to include this on the panel despite consensus from the nutrition community that the type of fat is far more important; in fact, in 2015, the U.S. Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee recommended removing the upper limit for total fat, which was important because it had led to widespread substitution with refined carbohydrates and sugars that had a net negative effect on diet quality. Skip total fat on the label and focus on minimizing saturated fat (as low as you can go) and trans fat (avoid altogether).
- Protein: Almost no one in the United States fails to get enough protein, even vegetarians. So with a few exceptions such as elite athletes, most people will automatically get enough protein in a given day by eating a variety of foods.
- Cholesterol: While blood cholesterol is an important health consideration, the amount you get from food (dietary cholesterol) is no longer considered as concerning for most people as it once was.
- Carbohydrates: Not all carbohydrates are created equal. You can’t tell from the Nutrition Facts panel how many whole grains servings are in a product, so your best bet is to check the ingredients list for first ingredient being a whole grain, such as quinoa, whole grain oats, brown rice, whole-wheat flour, etc. The additional carbohydrate-related information you might glean from the panel is basically added sugar (aim low) and dietary fiber (aim high).
Why Is the Nutrition Facts Panel There?
Food package regulations related to health and content claims were put in place in 1992. Before that, there was an explosion of package claims that frequently confused and often misled consumers.
In May 2016, the F.D.A. announced that the Nutrition Facts panel would be updated to reflect the latest nutrition science and to better equip consumers to make informed food choices. It’s already on thousands of products, and it will be on all packaged foods by Jan. 1, 2021 at the latest.
What's New
When the Nutrition Facts panel was first published in the ‘90s, fat was the biggest nutritional culprit of poor health, and cardiovascular disease was the greatest health concern. Today, overweight and obesity, and their associated health issues, are the biggest concerns. The newest label draws your eye more to total calories and serving size information, as well as a new feature helping consumers limit added sugar, which used to be difficult to discern from total sugar.