Food Labels

Choosing a healthier diet is easier when you know how to read the labels on foods and drinks – although this is sometimes not that easy.

Most foods and drinks come with a nutritional panel, detailing the nutritional information for that given product. This nutrition panel can be very useful – but only if you understand what the figures mean.

Most foods provide two panels of information:

• Nutritional information
• Guideline daily amounts

An example of a nutrition information panel from a food label:

Guideline daily amounts (GDA) are provided on many food labels (see traffic light labelling). This gives a guide to the number of calories and amount of fat the ‘average’ adult should eat per day. You can then take the information from the nutritional panel and work out how much is in each serving in comparison to the amount recommended in your daily diet.

Guideline daily amounts for average adults

Always use the GDA to guide you to making wise food choices, and as an extra help, the information is usually at the bottom of the nutrition information panel on food labels.

So, what does the nutrition information on the label really mean?

When you are looking to make healthy eating choices, the most important elements of food to concentrate on is the energy, fat and salt quantities detailed on the nutritional panel.

Energy

This can be expressed as kJ (kilojoules) or as kcal (kilocalories). Strictly speaking, a kilocalorie is equivalent to 1,000 calories, but in everyday language, the term ‘calorie’ is used for both measures.

Fat

There are three main types of fats; saturated, polyunsaturated and monounsaturated. Often on labels you will only see the total amount of fat and the amount of saturated fat in the product – it is the saturated fat that is the least healthy of the three.

Salt or Sodium

On a food label, salt is often called sodium. But don’t be fooled by smaller quantities, 1g of sodium is roughly the same as 2.5g salt and it is the sodium that causes health problems.