This week’s and next week’s edition of Food Savvy Friday will talk about how to interpret nutrition labels from top to bottom. In Part 1, we will look at calories, serving size, and macronutrients (fats, carbohydrates and protein).
Reading a nutrition label may seem daunting at first, but with knowledge and practice it will help increase your nutritional knowledge as a consumer and empower you to make more informed choices. When it comes to reading nutrition labels, the first step is to get a general understanding of the calories in the food.
Calories are the total energy found in a food product. They can also describe the energy required by the human body to properly function. Most adults require around 2,000-2,500 calories per day. When looking at the total energy coming from bread, for example, there are typically 60 calories per slice. However, since most people have two slices, one meal can have 120 calories from bread alone, or about 5-6% of the recommended daily calorie intake.
Another way to understand your intake of calories is by looking at serving size. This is more helpful for snack products like granola where a single serving may be listed as ¼ cup, which can be difficult to visualize. For instance, if there are eight servings in the snack bag, that means that this snack should last you a total of eight days if you have one serving per day.
Now, on to fats. There are four subcategories of fat: monounsaturated, polyunsaturated, saturated and trans fat. Let’s discuss what each of these are:
- Monounsaturated: Liquid at room temperature; healthy fats found in items such as olive oil, avocados, and certain nuts.
- Polyunsaturated: Healthy fats found mostly in nuts, seeds, fish, seed oils, and oysters.
- Saturated: Solid at room temperature; coined “dietary fat,” generally unhealthy and better to limit; found in foods like butter, palm and coconut oils, cheese, and red meat.
- Trans Fat: Artificial trans fats (or trans fatty acids) are created in an industrial process that adds hydrogen to liquid vegetable oils to make them more solid; found in processed foods such as fries, hamburgers, pizza, etc.; associated with many negative health effects, and have been banned in the U.S. and were taken off the generally recognized as safe (GRAS) list.
This next macronutrient, carbohydrates, is the preferred energy source of the body and is made up of smaller building blocks called glucose. Some people think that carbohydrates lack any health benefits and instead lead to weight gain. In reality, unprocessed carbohydrates are very healthy and are associated with lowering blood pressure and increasing energy levels. Whole grains like brown rice, quinoa, oatmeal, couscous, sweet potato, and corn are all high-impact carbohydrates that pack a big health punch. Fun fact: Carbohydrates typically make up the majority of the human diet.
Lastly, on to a very uplifting topic: Protein (pun intended for those who lift). Protein is a necessary macronutrient aiding in tissue repair and maintenance, enzyme functioning, and more. Protein deficiency is rare in the nation because the standard American diet incorporates a large amount of protein-rich meat. Protein is an essential nutrient found in all living things—both animals and plants alike.
Check back next week for nutrition labels Part 2, which will cover allergens, fiber, sodium, cholesterol, and the list of ingredients.