READING NUTRITION LABELS

How to read a food label
The information on a food label can help you make healthy and informed choices.
With some 50,000 items to choose from in a typical supermarket, you have a lot of decisions to make when you shop for food.

But you don't have to make your choices in a vacuum.

Wrapped around almost every packaged food you might buy is your guide to finding the healthiest foods possible for you and your family: a food label.

If you're willing to spend just a few moments reading the label, you'll be rewarded with both important and reliable information.

According to the American Dietetic Association (ADA), you can use food labels to:

Check calories. Every label lists the number of calories in a single serving of food. What's more, serving sizes are standardized. So you'll be able to compare foods to discover which brand of chicken soup or spaghetti sauce has fewer calories.

Learn about a food's nutritional merit. Food labels don't list every nutrient in a food. But they do list those that have the greatest effect on health, such as fat, cholesterol, calcium, sodium and fiber.

Moreover, labels also specify the exact amount of these key nutrients in a serving of food. This lets you quickly compare similar foods to find out which one will contribute most to a healthy diet.

Know precisely what you're buying. By law, food manufacturers must list all ingredients in their products. This list is especially helpful if you have a food allergy or want to avoid certain foods—for example, if you're a vegetarian.

Label claims

Not long ago, many of the claims that showed up on labels were nothing more than advertising hype. Vegetable oil marketed as "light" might merely be light in color—not calories or fat.

Today, however, labels are required to have specific meanings. For instance, a product advertised as "fat-free" must have an amount of fat so small that the fat will probably have no effect on your body, the ADA reports. Likewise, a food labeled "light" must have a third fewer calories or 50 percent less fat than the traditional version. And food that says it's "high in calcium" must contain 20 percent or more of the recommended Daily Value for calcium.

The bottom line: You can trust the wording on the label.

You can also trust any health claim promoting the potential of a particular food or nutrient to reduce the risk of a health problem—such as high blood pressure or osteoporosis. That's because only those health claims backed up by scientific evidence are now allowed on labels.

In sum, if you're in the market for a healthier diet, you can use food labels to your considerable advantage.

Click here to take an interactive look at the different parts of a food label and what they mean.