Understanding food labels
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With increasing rates of overweight/obesity worldwide, we are forever being told to follow a healthy diet and that homemade is usually best. Unfortunately, due to work/study, family or other pressures and time constraints, convenience has a big influence on our food choices. It is in these situations especially that understanding how to read food labels is important.
1. Nutrition labels can help you
- Compare products/brands
- Check how much fat, sugar or salt is in a food
- Choose the healthiest option
- Check the ingredients
- Understand what a typical portion size is
2. What am I looking for?
- Average adult guidelines:
- Female = 2000 kcal per day
- Male = 2500 kcal per day
3. I need to make a quick decision!
- Some labels use red, amber and green (traffic light) colour coding
- A quick glance can help you discover whether a food is high, medium or low in calories, sugar, fat, saturated fat and salt
- Generally, the more green lights, the healthier the choice!
4. The ingred...
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