Decoding Food Labels: How to Understand and Interpret Nutritional Information
- Kaitlyn Marie Redmore
- Jul 26, 2024
- 2 min read
Understanding the nutrition panel on packaged food can be a little confusing, let's break it down together...
Understanding food labels can be an extremely helpful tool on your fitness journey, but also in regards to your overall health. By understanding how to read nutrition labels, we can ensure we are making informed choices when it comes to the food we eat.
If you are currently flexible-dieting, reading nutrition labels will help you determine the caloric and macronutrient value of foods to ensure they fit into your targets for the day.
Here is a breakdown of the information you will take note of when reading a nutrition label:
Serving Size - this piece of information is very important as all the nutrition information on the label is based on this. It will often be supplied in grams, pieces, cups etc.
Servings per container - This refers to the total number of serves in the package. It is important to take note of this and adjust your tracking accordingly. For example, if you eat half of the package when it is labelled as ‘4 servings’, you have consumed 2 servings. This is often where people go wrong when tracking their food as they underestimate how many servings they consumed.
Nutrient breakdown - this is where you will find the macronutrient value of the food you are consuming. Look for the total grams of carbohydrates, protein and fats, and remember that these are based on the serving size, not the total content of the package/container. You will also find here the sodium content, cholesterol, dietary fibre and sugars.
Vitamins and minerals - aim to include foods in your diet that have high intakes of vitamins and minerals such as Vitamin D, Iron, Calcium and Potassium.
% of Daily Value - this will help you to gain a better understanding of how much of a nutrient in a serving of the food contributes to your daily diet, e.g., 20% of DV or more is considered high.
When reading nutrition labels, remember to take note of the serving size as this will significantly impact on your daily calorie intake. Also, check the macronutrient value per serving as this is what you will be logging in your food tracking app.
By using this information as a guide, you will be able to make better-informed choices on the foods you are consuming and ensure they fit into your daily nutrition targets.
