Congratulations, You Read the Nutrition Facts Label. Now What?
A food scientist’s guide to translating back-of-the-box stats into real-life benefits.
One topic of conversation I absolutely love is talking about nutritional labels. They are everywhere, and yet - what does it all mean?
Before we get too deep into it - I want to reiterate that the official name for these are:
NUTRITIONAL FACTS LABEL
Facts, not information.
Facts means it is data. It doesn’t mean anything on its own.
When you make sense of the facts and data - then it turns into Information, which actually means something.
Reading the nutrition facts label = looking at the data
Understanding how that food item fits into your life = information
This whole area can be a bit messy - with lots of people involved and you, the user is left to actually figure out what it all means.
Firstly - a nutrition facts label is really stuck between 2 main players:
The FDA
The manufacturer
The FDA is trying to look out for the average consumer and they want manufacturers to put ALL THE DATA there so that the people are empowered to make the right decisions.
The manufacturer wants their product to be as appealing as possible- so they find “loopholes” they can use to position their product to maybe be healthier than it seems.
And then there is you. Who is standing at the grocery store - looking at the label and wondering what it all means.
Nutrition labels are not there to judge your food choices.
They’re there to help you judge if that item fits in with your nutritional goals.
How to read a nutrition facts label
1. Let’s add some context
Let’s forget about the nutritional facts for a second and think about the main MPV here - YOU.
How many calories do you need to eat per day?
Women need anywhere from 1400-2400 cal per day and men 2000-3000 calories per day. If you want to know for sure you can use this free calculator to know your amount: Mayo Clinic’s Calorie Calculator
How many meals + snacks do you eat per day?
With a lower appetite, this might look like 5 meal/snacks per day
What’s a good meal/snack size for you?
You can divide your total calories by the number of meals/snacks per day and you will get an average number of calories per meal.
Use this number as a generic guideline. For this example we will assume that my calories per “meal” is going to be somewhere between 300-350.
Now take this range you just calculated and subtract ~100 cal for a snack and add ~100 for a meal. So for me - a good snack would fall in the range of 200-250 cal and 350-450 for a meal.
Once you learn your ranges, memorize them so when you are out and about you don’t need to calculate them over and over again.
Now back to that label
2.Servings per container & serving size
The first place to look on a nutrition label is the servings per container + serving size.
This matters because every number on the label - calories, protein, fiber, sugar, fat, sodium, vitamins - is based on that listed serving size. Not the whole package.
This is based on the amount the manufacturer defines as one serving. Sneaky manufacturers try to hide multiple servings in one package, so their nutrition facts look better. The FDA is trying to crack down on this and make these more accurate, but we aren’t there yet.
For example: a bottle of juice, a bag of chips, a protein bar, or frozen meal may look like one portion, but the label might say it contains 2 (or even 3,4,5) servings.
If the label says one serving has 150 calories, 5 grams of protein, and 300 milligrams of sodium, but you eat the whole package (two servings), you actually had:
300 calories
10 grams of protein
600 milligrams of sodium
The main formula here is: Actual calories per pack = total calories x number of servings
The 3 Questions I Ask Every Label
How much will I actually eat?
How many servings is that?
Does that fit my calorie/protein goals?
And there you go - now with the answers to these questions, you should be able to tell if this particular food item fits into your plans for yourself.
Coming back with a part 2 on how to make sense of the rest of it in a later week - subscribe if you want more!!