Reading Nutritional Guides

Reading about healthy foods, and learning which vegetables qualify as 'Super Foods' is much different than going to the supermarket and trying to decide which is the healthier brand of cereal. There are two ways to compare products, that are now required to appear on the label of any packaged food; the nutritional fact table and the ingredients list.

1. Nutritional Fact Table

The nutritional fact table summarizes the the percent daily values of the food contents. These contents include Calories, fat, carbohydrates, protein and 13 core nutrients (including fibre, vitamins and iron).

There are several important things to note when looking at a nutritional facts sheet. The first is the serving size, in this case '1 bowl' or 300 grams - in some cases, especially drinks, the serving size may not coincide with the amount you consume. For example, many 500 mL bottles of juice have a nutritional facts sheet for 250 mL (1 cup) of juice - so make sure to double all the values.

When comparing products, make sure you are comparing ones with similar serving sizes - or ones that you would typically consume. Granola bars, for example, may vary considerably in grams but you usually only consume one anyways so you can compare products.

The second thing to consider is the Calorie count - does the value seem appropriate for the purpose of the product? Light snack? Part of your dinner, breakfast?

Thirdly are the actual daily percent values. A good, quick, measure is that any value less than 5% is considered a 'little' and anything above 15% is considered a 'lot'. You should be choosing foods that have little fat (especially saturated and trans fats) and sodium (salt) and foods that have a lot of fibre, calcium, vitamins and iron. Another thing you do not want to see is cholesterol, which usually does not have a percent daily value because it is not part of a healthy diet. In cases where there are a lot of the good contents, as well as the bad (like in the case of this cereal) - the bad tends to outweigh the good. You should be looking for food that have BOTH a low content of the bad and a high content of the good.

2. Ingredients List

This is a list of the ingredients within the package ordered by their predominance by weight. In other words, the ingredient listed first is the ingredient which is present in the highest quantity. An ingredients list of "Sugar, Flour, Salt" means that if a pound of flour was used then more than a pound of sugar was used, and less than a pound of salt was used.

Confused by some of the ingredients listed? Just because you can't pronounce some of them doesn't mean that they are necessarily bad, but on the other hand some very commonly seen ones can be very dangerous! Click here for a list of ingredients and what they really are.