How to read nutrition labels

Food labels have always been confusing to me, in fact, researching for this post was as educational to me as I hope it is for you. Before this, I would always look at the calories per serving and serving size with a casual glance down to the sodium. The amount of fats listed boggled me, both to what they actually are and to how much I was allowed. I will go more in depth about what fats are in the near future, but for now I’ve assembled some information on how much you are allowed.

The following information is courtesy of the American Heart Association.

Start here. Note the size of a single serving and how many servings are in the package.

Check total calories per serving. Look at the serving size and how many servings you’re really consuming. If you double the servings you eat, you double the calories and nutrients, including the Percent Daily Value (% DV). If you cut the servings down by a percentage you cut down the calories and nutrients, including the Percent Daily Value (% DV), by that percentage.

Limit these nutrients. These numbers are based on someone who eats between 2,000 to 2,500 calories a day, if you need more or less you will need to adjust your intake value. For the people with 2,000 calorie intakes, you need to limit your total fat to no more than 56–78 grams a day — including no more than 16 grams of saturated fat, less than two grams of trans fat, and less than 300 mg cholesterol. For total carbohydrate, dietary fiber, vitamins and minerals, your daily value goal is to reach 100% of each.

Get enough of these nutrients. Make sure you get 100 percent of the fiber, vitamins and other nutrients you need every day.

Quick guide to % DV. The % DV section tells you the percent of each nutrient in a single serving, in terms of the daily recommended amount. As a guide, if you want to consume less of a nutrient (such as saturated fat, cholesterol or sodium), choose foods with a lower % DV — 5 percent or less is low. If you want to consume more of a nutrient (such as fiber), seek foods with a higher % DV — 20 percent or more is high.

Here are more tips for getting as much health information as possible from the Nutrition Facts label:

• Remember that the information shown in these panels is based on 2,000 calories a day. You may need to consume less or more than 2,000 calories depending upon your age, gender, activity level, and whether you’re trying to lose, gain or maintain your weight. Find out your personal daily limits on My Fats Translator.
• Here’s a tip: rather than fill in the weight you are, fill in the weight you want to be so you know the amount of intake you can have each day to reach your goal. For example, I want to be 120 lbs. so I placed that in the weight area instead so I know I need to eat that amount or lower to start losing weight until I reach that point, then it will be maintenance.
• In general, as you think about the amount of calories in a food per serving, remember that for a 2,000-calorie diet:
• 40 calories per serving is considered low;
• 100 calories per serving is considered moderate; and
• 400 calories or more per serving is considered high.
• There is no % DV shown for trans fat on the panel because the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) does not have enough scientific information to set this value. We recommend eating less than 20 calories or (less than two grams of trans fat) a day – that’s less than 1 percent of your total daily calories (for a 2,000-calorie-a-day diet).
• When the Nutrition Facts panel says the food contains “0 g” of trans fat, it means the food contains less than 0.5 grams of trans fat per serving.
• When the Nutrition Facts label says a food contains “0 g” of trans fat, but includes “partially hydrogenated oil” in the ingredient list, it means the food contains trans fat, but less than 0.5 grams of trans fat per serving. So, if you eat more than one serving, you could quickly reach your daily limit of trans fat.