Nutrition Information in Food Labels

Most packaged foods in the United States are required by law to carry nutrition labeling. This labeling is voluntary for many raw foods, such as fruits, vegetables, and fish.Nutrition labels are based on a 2000 calorie diet.

Food labels are important when picking diet foods. You want to pick foods that provide the calories that you need without going over your daily allowance, but still want to get all the nutrients that you need. Food labels are a great way to make sure that your diet provides you with what you want and does not provide you with things that you do not want. You can easily see how much soduim a food has. Some soups have 40 percent or more per serving. Than means that a two serving can of soup will give you most of your daily allowance of sodium. Eat several cans of soup and you could greatly exceed what ou should have. Using food labels can be tricky. You might see that it provides 50% of your grain requirement, but it contins a lot of calories from fat in the crust of a pot pie. If you do not eat the crust to avoid the fat, you do not get the grain from the pot pie. So you have to adjust downward for that.

Food labels provide you with alot of information. This is good if you are comparing several food of the same type. This is a great way to pick the best diet food from seveal similiar items. For example you could compare Regular Milk to Skim Milk. You can see how much calcium and fat you are getting in each as well as how many calories.

Vitamins and Minerals

Vitamins and minerals are listed because they are things that people do not get enough of. So to help you make good food choices, the information about vitamins and minerals is listed toward the bottom of the food label.The lower this value, the less nutrients the food has. Food that have less than 5% are considered low. Foods with 20% or more are good food choices for those nutrients. Look for foods that are high in vitamins A and C, potassium, calcium, and iron. Choose the brand with the higher % DV for these nutrients. Look for foods that prodide these in higher quantities for the amount of calories consumed.

Fats, Cholesterol, Sodium

Fats are bad for a diet. They have nine calories for every gram consumed. That is over twice that for protein. Protein has four calories per gram. To help lower blood cholesterol, replace saturated and trans fats with monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats found in fish, nuts, and liquid vegetable oils. To reduce your risk for heart disease, keep your consumption of fats, sodium, and cholesterol.

Fats, sodium, and cholesterol are listed right under calories on a food label. Fat free does not mean that it is lower in calories. It might have just as many as the regular version.

You should keep your cholesterol below 300mg a day and your total fts under 65 grams, with 20 grams or less coming from saturated fats. Your total sodium intake should be less than 2400mg a day.

Calories and Serving Size

The calories and serving size are very important in determining how many calories you consume from a give food. One serving of chocolate chip cookies is three cookies. One serviving of chocolate cookies is 120 calories. You eat nine cookies. You just consumed 360 calories. Remember that one bag, bottle, can of something is not a serving. It may contain several servings.

Picking foods that ae dense in calories will not leave you full. Pick foods that are low in calories and filling. You serving size will affect how much fat, vitamin and mineral you consime. Everything need to be multiplied by how much you consumed.

Protein

Protein from animal products have cholesterol and fat. When choosing a food for its protein content, such as
meat, poultry, dry beans, milk and milk products, make choices that are lean, low-fat, or fat free. The less fats in a meat the more nutrients that you get from it, without extra calories.

Carbohydrates - Sugar and Fiber

Sugars are empyy calories and you should limit these in your diet. There is not a daily value for sugar, but you can compare products to see which is healthier for you. Limit foods with added sugars. Make sure that added sugars are not one of the first
Look for foods that are rich in these nutrients. few items in the ingredients list. Some common names for added sugars are: sucrose, glucose, fructose, corn or maple syrup.

Fiber is important in reducing the risk of heart disease and improve digestive functioning. You should get 25 grams of fiber daily. More if your caloric intake is more.