Reading Nutrition Labels
Nutritionist, educator & Founder DietWisdom
Reading time- 4 mins
In today's world food companies are deluding its customers by providing inaccurate/incomplete misleading information about nutrition information of food. Supply and consumption of packaged and ready to eat foods at supermarkets has increased tremendously over the years. Though there are different regulatory bodies in different countries, which regulate food industry with the help of standardized procedures and Norms; like FSSAI in India, FDA in United States etc.
Instead of providing standardized and prescribed nutrition content; how do we as a customer land up eating unhealthy; causing/leading us in to lifestyle disorders.
In order to protect health, one should know how to use nutrition facts information provided by the companies in the form of labels; for choosing the right type of food as per the requirement.
Though a prominent fact is that healthiest foods like fresh fruits, fresh vegetables or fresh chicken, fish does not require any labels; So in order to eat right one should pick for the foods, which are not packaged and processed. But as we all know that more or less, we all are dependent on packaged food to some extent and the irony is that there is a lot of food variety available in the single food groups.
Tips for reading Nutrition labels
It's been rightly said that 'it is good to be informed than ignorant'. In order to make an informed decision, one should know what to seek.
Serving size - First of all, one needs to understand that a nutrition label does not represent the information of the whole package content. Usually they represent a single serving size or 100 gms. Or 50 gms. That can be misleading to customers, as if customer is looking for some biscuits considering its as low fat option, by checking its sugar content, mentioned 'sugar 6gms' and customer can buy by considering it low sugar options and choosing it as a healthy product ; but that 6 gms sugar contained by 1 single serving of biscuits; when that 6 gms multiplied by ten (if 10 biscuits Is the total quantity) than it depicts 60 gms of the sugar and that's is almost 14 spoons of sugar; that is way too high and actually not healthy at all.
Total Calories - We often infer consumables from the total calories; but unfortunately numbers which are written in context to total calories are not the correct way to measure the nutrient value of the product. If I consider Ghee or fat and look for the calories served in one serving; that is actually way too high then a low fat pack of biscuits but the fact is its way healthier than a pack of biscuits; if consumed in reasonable amounts.
Dietary fiber - Fibre is very important for maintaining healthy Gut health; which aids in digestion process and helps in balancing our hormones by evacuating the toxins from our body. Always land up on choosing a product which has higher amount of fiber; in case of comparing similar categories of products.
Sugars - One teaspoon of sugar is equivalent to 4 gms. Of sugar and sugar is always mentioned in gms. Specifically on the nutrition labels. As we all know that excessive sugar is the cause of obesity. For having sugars its not necessarily meant the product to be sweet. All consumables do contain one or the other type of sugar. Whenever one is choosing a consumable try to opt out for low sugar products.
Amount of fat - It has always been seen that processed foods often publicise the eatables as low fat or no/zero trans fat or fat free or baked packaged products. But if we see natural foods like Almonds, walnuts, cashews etc does contain lot of fat because fat occurs naturally in them in the form of unsaturated and its always been suggested that, food contain more saturated fat even from the natural sources should always be consumed occasionally and that too in less amounts and as far as trans fat is considered, many countries had banned use of trans fat by the companies for packaging and processing foods. According to the researchers; there is enough evidence to support that unsaturated fat and trans fat is associated with Coronary heart disease. So, one should avoid trans fat completely and unsaturated fat should not be consumed often and too in less quantities.
Sodium - It has always been suggested that one should choose products which have less amounts of salt. It should always be remembered that packaged foods are always loaded with more sugar and salt in order to increase their shelf lives. Consuming products which contain more sodium creates inter and intra cellular imbalances in the human body, which lead to bloating, indigestion and hypertension issues.
Added macronutrients - It has been seen that nutrition labels contain information about added micronutrients in the form of vitamins and minerals. Customer while buying the product gets influenced by these added vitamins and minerals like zinc, Vit. A, C etc. But it should be always noted that most of the time these added nutrients are synthetically processed, which is apparently difficult for our body to assimilate. It's always been suggested one should not descend for buying or choosing those food products by considering these added micronutrients.
Conclusion
It is always advisable that one should be more dependent on the plant based or natural sources of food when it comes to making healthy eating choices as these foods do not come with nutrition labels. But as now a days packaged and processed foods have become inevitable part of our life, so one should be careful in choosing the right kind of product as per the requirements. And please do not forget to check ingredients list; Shorter and understandable ingredients should always be preferred, when it comes to making right choices for feeding oneself. Always remember long lists of ingredients and use of technical jargon like codes etc. depicts that product is highly processed and should be avoided.