Reading food labels

Reading food labels can be a challenge! You have the nutrition facts label, ingredients list, and sometimes health claims on the label.

So let's look at each of these:

The ingredients list

Ingredients are listed in order of predominance.

What to look for:

--5 ingredients or less

--ingredients you can recognize as food

--ingredients you can pronounce

--ingredients you could grow in your garden or stock in your pantry

What to avoid:

-- long list, where you need a magnifying glass to read it!

--chemical sounding names you can't pronounce

--lots of sugar in various forms all over the list

-- corn, soy or canola derived ingredients, which are most likely GMO products

--trans-fats, partially hydrogenated oil, soy oil, corn oil, high fructose corn syrup

For example...

Eden Organic Sauerkraut. ingredients: organic cabbage, water, sea salt (ah, simplicity!)

Tahini. Ingredients: mechanically hulled sesame seeds

Natures Valley All Natural Oats and Honey Granola Bar, ingredients: (with my comments)

whole grain oats, sugar, canola oil (GMO ingredient),yellow corn flour (GMO ingredient),honey (more sugar),brown sugar syrup (more sugar),soy lecithin (GMO ingredient),baking soda,natural flavors (could be MSG)

If a product is not organic, You can assume the corn, coy and canola in it are genetically modified. 80% or more of these foods are from GM seed.

As you can see, the "all natural" granola bar is not all natural! This granola bar has 3 types of sugar, 3 GMO ingredients, and possibly MSG. The term "natural " has no meaning other than to fool you.

Nutrition fact labels

These are mandated by the FDA and USDA.

First, notice the serving size. The label is written for one serving. But the package may contain 2 or more servings.

Next you see a list of nutrients and percentages. The percentage numbers are based on percentage of daily values. The daily values are based on a RDA's (recommended daily allowance) for 2000 calorie diet, an average. You may need more or less calories. So it's all an estimate. So here is what you will see on a nutrition facts label:

Reading food labels, nutrition facts example:

Amy's organic lentil vegetable soup, light in sodium

Calories per serving: 160

Serving size: 1 cup

2 servings per can (if you eat the whole can, double all the nutrient amounts!)

total fat 6%

trans fats 0%

cholesterol 0%

sodium 14%

total carb 8%

fiber 32%

sugars 5g (no daily value listed, only grams of sugar)

Protein 7G (no daily value listed, only gram of protein)

Vitamin A 45%

Vitamin C 20%

Calcium 6%

Iron 15%

What the numbers mean:

5% of any nutrient is low in the nutrient

10-19% of any nutrient is a good source of that nutrient

20% of a nutrient is a high source of that nutrient.

When reading food labels, you want low numbers for fats, sodium, sugars, and cholesterol. And it's good to have high numbers Vit A, Vit C, calcium, iron, fiber. And calories? 400 or more calories per serving of a single food is considered high for calories.

So for this soup, you get a good source of fiber, Vitamin A, C, and iron, and you may need to watch the sodium, depending on your needs.

Other food label terms:

USDA organic label: at least 95% of ingredients are organic

"natural" has no meaning at all!

"reduced " sodium, fat or sugar means the product is reduced compared to the original version of the product.

"low calories" means the product contains 1/3 of the calories of the original version.

low fat and non-fat foods are usually full of sugar and salt. Read the labels for sugar content.

What about Health claims on food? Only huge food companies can lobby the FDA to get these labels, and their foods are mostly food-lab creations made with cheap ingredients, MSG, GMO and other baddies.

Read the ingredients list to get the whole picture. The food product may have oats to lower cholesterol, but is it also full of sugar, MSG, and GMO ingredients?

Bottom line: When reading food labels, buy products with real food in them! and watch out for salt, trans fats and sugar.

Whew! Rather than reading food labels, I find it easier just to cook from scratch with real food.

More articles you may like:

Return from reading food labels to healthy-foods-lifestyle

Here's a healthy grocery list

The locavore, eat what is local!

MSG, what is it and is it bad for you

Best quality salt is sea salt

Best companies for natural foods

the truth about high fructose corn syrup

What is GMO food, and is it safe?