How to Read Food Labels
Would you mind tasting this? It’s my second book, Starting from Scratch, and I want to get readers’ thoughts on flavor and texture before it goes in the oven. Starting From Scratch picks up where Finding Life’s Secret Sauce left off, with a focus on how to fit healthier eating and cooking into your crazy, busy schedule. We’ve all developed our own systems and solutions in the kitchen, and I would love to sprinkle readers’ real-life tips throughout my book. I will publish book excerpts on my blog weekly, encouraging you to dish out your advice in the comments section. I’ll include helpful comments in the book, crediting you and/or your blog, and send you free copies of the book. Also, I’m consulting an expert blogger(s) for each section of the book – for this excerpt, it’s Georgie Fear, a Registered Dietitian who writes at Ask Georgie.
At a recent supper club with Team Dirty Martini, in between the bottles of wine we drank and the mound of cookies we ate for dessert, one of my friends, Kristie, asked, “What are the ten most healthy foods?” Despite the humor of the situation, or at least the timing of the question, depending on who you ask, you’ll probably get a different response to this question each time.
And if you are turning to the various labels on food to find the answers, you may end up even more confused.
Figuring out food labels
The Government and manufacturers help keep consumers informed with mandatory food labels. Though these can be helpful, it’s important to look closely.
Nutrition Facts Label. Nutrition facts labels are one of the easiest barometers to gauge foods’ content, including serving size, calories, nutrients and percent daily value. They look something like this:
One aspect of the label that is important to note is serving size. For example, if you are eating Kellogg’s Cracklin’ Oat Bran, shown above, the serving size is ¾ cup, or barely enough to fill a toddler. With 35 grams of carbohydrates in that small serving, you are likely to get your recommended carbohydrate allowance for an entire day in one sitting, if you consume several bowls.
Likewise, the delicious Riceworks Gourmet Brown Rice Square Crisps are made of brown rice, an ingredient I’d deem fairly healthy.
Rob, my husband, was so excited when he discovered an alternative to Tostitos he ate more than a few serving sizes in one sitting. However, if you look at the nutrition label closely, you’ll quickly see that 10 chips contain 6 grams of fat, or 10% of your daily recommended allowance. And if you are eating half a bag of these chips, which is quite easy to do (especially if sampling the Sea Salt flavor), you’ll consume more fat than you might need.
And to make matters more confusing, serving size varies dramatically by food type.
Ingredients Lists. It’s important to review ingredients lists if you or your children have a specific allergy. They are also great for finding “hidden” ingredients like added sugar or unhealthy fats.
I was born and raised in Tennessee, the capital of country music, the home of Elvis Presley and the origin of the Moon Pie. I loved them as a child, but must admit I’d forgotten what they tasted like until recently, when my friend Shelley brought me a box back from a business trip. Not that anyone eats a Moon Pie to get a rush of nutrients, but here’s what the ingredients list looks like:
Enriched wheat flour (Niacin, Reduced Iron, Thiamine mononitrate, Riboflavin, Folic acid), Corn Syrup, High Fructose Corn Syrup, Sugar, Vegetable Shortening (Contains Partially hydrogenated Soybean Oil and/or Cottonseed Oil and/or Coconut Oil and/or Palm kernel oil and/or Palm Oil), Soy Flour, Dutch Cocoa (Processed With Alkali), Cocoa, Gelatin, Baking Soda, Lecithin, Salt, Artificial Flavoring, Sodium sulfite.
Because ingredients are listed in sequential order, from the highest to lowest percent of content, you can quickly surmise that Moon Pies contain lots of sugar (and I realize after one bite, you might not need an ingredients list to figure this out).
Smart Choices Labels. There’s also a food labeling system in use called Smart Choices. Apparently, cereals like Froot Loops and Cocoa Krispies will receive the checkmark label, largely because of nutrients added to them (let’s hope it is not because of the amount of sugar they contain). To bear the Smart Choice label, companies must pay $100K/year to participate in the program. Need I say more about why nutritionists doubt the validity and worth of this new labeling system?
Other labels and claims. The ones that always get me are All Natural and Organic.
But I’m getting ahead of myself. Health claims deserve a deeper explanation, so stay tuned next week for more information on this topic.
About Georgie
Georgie Fear is a Registered Dietitian and New Jersey native. She received her undergraduate degree in Nutritional Sciences from Rutgers University and completed her dietetic internship and clinical training at Cornell University. She currently works as Sports Nutritionist for Rutgers University Athletics, and teaches many fitness and nutrition classes at the university and other health and medical establishments around Central Jersey. A lifelong athlete, Georgie is a marathon runner, triathlete, and avid rock climber. Her educational style is science-based, informative, and full of practical tips that work in the real world. She specializes in nutrition for sports performance, weight management, chronic disease prevention, and healthy cooking.
A few thoughts...
1) If you are going to use the example of the Cracklin Oat Bran, it would be helpful if that were the sample nutrition label. I found myself trying to read the label to match your example.
2) I would consider adding the complication that some labels have when their serving sizes are not whole units of the contents. For example, they may say serving size is 1 cup and servings in container is "About 3". That makes it very difficult to calculate total caloric content of what is consumed.
3) I would consider adding the complication that some nutrition labels are in a unit that can not be easily converted for the entire contents of the container. This is similar to point 2, but more annoying. Campbell's Microwavable soup bowls is the worst offender. Not only do they claim there are "about 2" servings in a single microwavable bowl, but I think they express the serving in volume and the overall packaging is expressed in weight which can not be easily converted. 
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A few thoughts…
1) If you are going to use the example of the Cracklin Oat Bran, it would be helpful if that were the sample nutrition label. I found myself trying to read the label to match your example.
2) I would consider adding the complication that some labels have when their serving sizes are not whole units of the contents. For example, they may say serving size is 1 cup and servings in container is “About 3″. That makes it very difficult to calculate total caloric content of what is consumed.
3) I would consider adding the complication that some nutrition labels are in a unit that can not be easily converted for the entire contents of the container. This is similar to point 2, but more annoying. Campbell’s Microwavable soup bowls is the worst offender. Not only do they claim there are “about 2″ servings in a single microwavable bowl, but I think they express the serving in volume and the overall packaging is expressed in weight which can not be easily converted.