How to Read Food Labels

To keep your family healthy, look more carefully at the packaged foods you buy. Are they worth it? Here’s what you should know about reading food labels.

Do you believe the claims on food packaging?  Do you look at the nutrition label on the side?

That little black-and-white box mandated by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is meant to help you compare and choose healthier products with less added sugar and more nutrients.

It breaks down the amount of calories, carbohydrates, fat, fiber, protein, and vitamins a food contains per serving.

In addition, because companies are required to tell you how much fat, sugar, and salt their products contain, they may use a bit less of those additives.

Although food labeling is complicated, a few tips about how to read them may save you confusion.

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Read the list of ingredients

On the label for a Hostess cupcake, the first ingredient listed is sugar. The second is water, followed by flour. That means it contains more sugar than anything else. You should check at least the top three ingredients in any product.

In general, fewer ingredients are better (unless you’re looking at a list of spices). Foods with many ingredients, especially words you don’t recognize, are highly processed, which means they have been manufactured to make you eat too much of them.

The label for a Hostess cupcake, for instance, looks like this:

SUGAR, WATER, ENRICHED FLOUR (BLEACHED WHEAT FLOUR, MALTED BARLEY FLOUR, NIACIN, FERROUS SULFATE OR REDUCED IRON, THIAMINE MONONITRATE, RIBOFLAVIN, FOLIC ACID), HIGH FRUCTOSE CORN SYRUP, PALM OIL, CORN SYRUP, COCOA, SOYBEAN OIL, TALLOW, CONTAINS 2% OR LESS: GLYCERIN, COCOA PROCESSED WITH ALKALI, MODIFIED CORNSTARCH, BAKING SODA, SALT, CORN STARCH, DEXTROSE, WHEY, HYDROGENATED TALLOW, INULIN, EGG, CALCIUM CARBONATE, SORBIC ACID AND POTASSIUM SORBATE (TO RETAIN FRESHNESS), CALCIUM SULFATE, ENZYMES, EGG WHITE, MONO AND DIGLYCERIDES, SODIUM ACID PYROPHOSPHATE, COTTONSEED OIL, NATURAL AND ARTIFICIAL FLAVOR, SODIUM STEAROYL LACTYLATE, AGAR, XANTHAN GUM, SOY LECITHIN, POLYSORBATE 60, CELLULOSE GUM, LOCUST BEAN GUM, MONOCALCIUM PHOSPHATE, TITANIUM DIOXIDE (COLOR), DISODIUM PHOSPHATE, SUNFLOWER OIL, CHOCOLATE LIQUOR, DEFATTED SOY FLOUR.

Pay attention to serving sizes  

A serving size is the amount of any food a person normally eats or drinks, not how much of it you should consume.

On the Hostess label, the serving is one cake, with 170 calories. That may seem reasonable. But if you get a package of two cupcakes, are you going to eat just one?  You need to double the calories you see on the label.

Serving sizes used to be wildly unrealistic prior to the latest FDA labeling rules. Now they’re closer to the truth. But you’re still faced with the dilemma of how to resist eating two cupcakes at once.

Watch out for “Total” and “Added” Sugars

Look at the line on the nutrition label for Total Sugars and Added Sugars. Milk, fruit, and other foods contain sugar naturally. Manufactures put the Added Sugars in their products.

Added Sugars go by many names. On the Hostess label, for example, you will see high-fructose corn syrup, right after the word flour. Yet in sixth place, you’ll see corn syrup. Both are sweeteners added on top of the first ingredient, sugar.

Among others, added sugars include:

• High-fructose corn syrup
• Corn syrup
• Barley malt
• Fruit juice concentrate
• Lactose
• Glucose
• Maltodextrin
• Maltose
• Cane juice

But you don’t have to look for them if you check the Added Sugars total. The FDA requires manufacturers to use that wording so that you can see just how much sugar you’re buying and won’t be fooled by marketing.

You’ll see the amount of sugars in both grams and a percentage — how much all of those sweeteners would contribute to a recommended maximum daily intake. The maximum is set at 10 percent of a 2,000-calorie-a-day diet, which comes to 200 calories.

One Hostess cupcake contains 19 grams of Added Sugars, which is 38 percent of your sweetener for the day. If you eat two, you’re at 76 percent and haven’t left room for another dessert (or natural AND added sugars in other foods) that day.

A moderately active slender woman who doesn’t want to lose weight should eat 2,000 calories a day. But even an active six-foot male who doesn’t need to lose weight shouldn’t eat more than 2,700 calories or so. 

The Added Sugars line may be especially useful for parents, people who have diabetes and prediabetes, sugar junkies, and bingers.

What does “healthy” mean?

The word “healthy” on the front of a packaged food isn’t meaningless — but you still want to think about how a food fits into your family’s overall diet.

To call a product healthy, companies must meet standards set in 1994, the food:

• Falls within limits for fat, cholesterol, and salt
• Provides at least 10 percent of the daily value for important nutrients, such as vitamin A, vitamin C, calcium, iron, protein, and fiber

What does “natural” mean?

Natural means the product doesn’t have any extra artificial ingredients, such as color dyes.

What does “organic” mean?

Organic means that at least 95 percent of the ingredients are certified as coming from soil that had no prohibited substances applied for three years prior to harvest. The other 5 percent must be ingredients approved by the U. S. Department of Agriculture.

Just be aware that organic sugar is still sugar, which isn’t necessarily healthy for you to eat that day.

What does “multi-grain” mean?

Multi-grain sounds great, but it only means a product contains more than one kind of grain. If the flour is refined, the food isn’t ideal.

Look instead for “100 percent whole grain.” That means the food has much more fiber, an important nutrient. Whole wheat flour might contain four to five times the amount of fiber as the same amount of refined (white) wheat flour.

A product might say it is “made with whole grains” but, if no whole grain appears near the top, you’re not getting much of it. 

How food manufacturers are improving their products

Food manufacturers are beginning to make their products a bit healthier. Kraft, for instance, removed artificial dyes in its macaroni and cheese three months before the company announced the change to consumers. No one noticed.

But you’re even better off if you make macaroni and cheese yourself — with whole wheat macaroni, possibly adding some spinach or red pepper, so your dish looks special and colorful to your kids.

Your best bet for a healthy diet is to choose foods that are high in vitamins, minerals, and fiber — and to eat less food that contains added sugars, saturated fat, sodium, and trans fat.

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