Reading Labels

If you are interested in maintaining a healthy weight and making good food choices, then it is helpful to be label savvy. There is so much marketing jargon around food even within existing labeling regulations that it is sometimes very difficult to know who to trust. A rule of thumb (at the risk of becoming paranoid) is not to trust anything you read on the front of a package. Always turn it over and read both the ingredients list and the nutritional information table. Don’t just look at calories, because while it is true that managing calories can help with weight loss and maintenance, calories are only one part of the picture when it comes to good nutrition.

A few label-reading techniques will help you to navigate your food shopping with ease. Try to look at the following:

Ingredients list: Make sure the product is made of real food, not refined empty calories and chemicals. Empty calories are those that come from foods where there is no other nutritional value of any significance associated with that food. White sugar and plain white flour are good examples of this. The opposite of an empty calorie is a “full calorie”, like those you might get from spinach, where the nutritional value far exceeds the amount of calories that food provides. Healthy eating means leaning towards more of those nutrient-rich foods, rather than just calorie-dense foods. 

Protein: This will make the food more satisfying and can help to lower the glycaemic index of any carbohydrates involved. If the food contains about 10g protein, it could be a nice snack. 20-40g indicates a good protein-rich meal.

Total Carbohydrates: 15g = 1 slice of bread. Many convenience meals and packaged snacks can be packed full of carbs in a relatively small package – just read a few labels in your grocery store and see how many slices of bread those little meals are equivalent to. Call this the “sandwich rule” if you like – if it has more carbohydrates than 2 slices of bread (30g) consider it too much for 1 person to eat at a time, especially if you are actively trying to reduce weight or manage blood glucose levels. Eating more carbohydrates than this is likely to create a large blood sugar load that stimulates the release of lots of insulin, which can lead to weight gain in the long run. If the ingredients list indicates that all the carbohydrates come from white sugar or refined starches, then rather try to find something that is made of more whole foods. The trick to making a more satisfying and healthy meal is to add other foods without adding more carbohydrates, for example, adding protein, healthy fats and high fibre vegetables to balance out the carbohydrates. 

Fat: Use your common sense here – both the quantity and the quality of fat are important. Obviously raw nuts will contain lots of fat, but it is good quality mono-unsaturated fat. A packet of chips contains refined vegetable oil that has been exposed to high frying temperatures, which turns it into a bad fat. It is fine to eat some fat as long as it is good quality. 10-15g per meal or snack is a rough guide, but it absolutely depends on your requirements.

Sodium: This is an indication of the amount of salt in your food. Excess sodium intake can lead to hypertension. If a food contains more than 600mg sodium per 100g, try to avoid it. Look for foods that have less than 120mg per 100g.