How To Interpret Food Labels

By Owen Jones

if you need to keep an eye on your diet, and if you do not right now, then you will have to one day, you should begin learning the caloric values of the different foods and liquids that you like to consume most often.

For instance, you should know items like: 100g (4 ozs) of green beans is worth 100 calories. The next problem comes with what 100g of green beans looks like.

This comes with practice, but of course 100g of green beans looks different to 100g of beef or 100g of potatoes. Scales will help here, but they are cumbersome to carry around with you and use in public. Most people underestimate their portions, whether by accident or on purpose.Still, practice makes perfect, so the earlier you start the better.

Another helpful part of dieting, and controlling allergies for that matter, is knowing what is in your food, especially if it comes out of a tin or jar.

The contents and the additives should be written on the label, but it is normally just the non-contentious ingredients that are put in plain English. So, how do you read food labels?

The amount of data given and the clarity of description it is given in, differs from country to country, but in general the label will tell you the amounts of: saturated fat, absolute fat, sodium (salt), sugar, fibre, cholesterol and calories per serving. Naturally, you need to know what they mean by ‘a serving’ or portion.

It may also give you the nutritional make-up of the contents, for example: citric acid, B5, B12 and it may even give the RDA (Recommended Daily Amount) of those nutrients. And if you are lucky, you will be told the additives as well. Additives are controversial, so in Europe they are given in ‘E Numbers’ so that people cannot comprehend them.

The more information on the label the more vital it is to know the serving size. For instance if you are trying to follow a sodium-controlled diet and you see that the can contains 2g of salt, it makes a huge difference whether the can contains one or four servings.

Likewise, if the can contains 500 calories per serving. If the can contains four servings, it is equal to 2,000 calories or more than the majority of people should be eating in twenty-four hours!

As you discover what a manufacturer means by a serving, it is worth writing the information in a book, because it is quite possible that Cambells and Batchellors, for example, have different thoughts on what constitutes a serving and it might vary from country to country too. A manufacturer of, say, soup may recommend 100 g as a serving in Thailand, but 150 g in Europe.

The ingredients of the tin are listed from the greatest amount, which is normally the cheapest, say, water, potatoes or pasta to the smallest, which will be the E numbers, which will be flavour-enhancers, colouring and preservatives. Coming at the end of the list like that, it is easy to think that the quantities must be minuscule and therefore not worth worrying about.

But it is worth worrying about them if you are allergic to them, so once again, if you see an additive that you do not understand, enter it into Google and write a summary in your notebook, which you should take shopping with you.

Owen Jones, the author of this article writes on a number of subjects, but is at present involved with the Mattress Bed Bugs Covers. If you would like to know more, go over to our website at Bed Infestation.

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Topics: Allergies/Asthma | Comments Off

Tags: allergies, Allergies/Asthma, Cooking, diet, family, Food, Food Additives, health, illness, Nutrition, other, Recipes, supplements, uncategorized, weight loss

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