What information can be found on a "food label"?
The main thing to think about with a food label, and what I say when I'm teaching my clients how to read a food label, is that it's not that they have to read everything on that label. They have to focus in on a few things. One is the serving size because if you get a bottle of some sort of juice and it says, “50 calories per serving,” but there are four servings in that bottle, then you have to figure out that you're getting four times that if you drink the whole bottle. So that's one thing; understanding what a serving size is in that package or container. Number two is really looking at the list of ingredients. How many ingredients are in that particular food? If there's more than four or five, it's probably not a whole-food-based kind of product; it's probably a very synthetic kind of product with a lot of added things to preserve it, to keep it on a shelf for a long time. That would not be a good idea. You also look at what the first ingredient is. If it says “wheat flour,” you know you've got a white-flour product there. If it says “whole-wheat flour,” then you've got something that's got whole wheat as the foundation. Then, you look at what the next ingredient is, and the next ingredient. As long as you can read all of the ingredients and know what they are, that's a good start point. Then, it starts with the healthiest product. If it starts with sugar, don't pick it up and buy it. That's something that you don't need in your diet. However, if it's got a whole-grain base, that's probably a good alternative. The next thing to look at is how much sugar and how much sodium there is in the product, and what kind of fat it is in the product. Is it trans-fatty acids? How much of the trans fats are inherent in it? How much fat overall is there? I usually aim with my clients to teach them to have no more than 3 grams of fat per serving. That way they get a good serving size of fats but not too much, and especially, as I said a minute ago, you don't want to have trans-fatty acids.
