Understanding Food Labels

Understanding food labels is easier than it sounds although I have walked away after reading some food labels and the first thing that entered my mind right after was "What the heck?"

I felt that I need a dictionary nearby just to pronounce some of the words. One great thing is that there are many diet and food programs that can educate you on labels like your local community college. They usually send out their program booklet around this time of the year loaded with enrichment classes. New Year bring new year resolutions involving losing weight so you can always find some nutrition classes offered after the new year and the prices are usually vey cheap

Here are a few things you should keep in mind know when you are looking at any ingredients the top one is the one that is used the most in the product. And anything that is in the product that is less than 2% by weight and or amount they can be listed in any order. So I think of it as a general rule of thumb basically the first few items listed are the more prevalent in the product.

When you look at the nutritional label all those wonderful number are for the suggested service size. So if you eat twice the suggested serving size than you have to double those numbers so you can tell how much you are eating. The percentages that are listed down the right side of the label shows how much of this product covers the amount of certain nutrients ,like soduim, we should have. The percentage is base the recommended amount if you ate a 2000 calorie diet which is called daily value. You should view the percentages as an estimate since many of us don't count calories. If a product have a high fat percentage like 25% than you may want to put that item back.

Another tip that is easy to remember is the difference between trans fat and/ or saturated fat and unstaturated fat is trans or staurated fats are the bad fats that can increase your risk of heart disease while unsaturated fat( mono or poly saturated fat) are the good fats.

Don't forget about Carbohydrates -the key to remember here is that you want most of the carbohydrates to come from dietary fiber but if most of your carbohydrates are coming from sugar then you want to put that item back on the shelves.

Read more about food labels...

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