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How To Understand The New Nutritional Label
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The purpose of the nutrition label is to let consumers know more exactly what they’re eating and how it can affect their health. Just knowing what ingredients are in a food product doesn’t give you this information. However, you should not ignore the list of ingredients. This is especially true if you have food allergies or a special diet (such as vegetarian). Also, you can get an idea of the quality of a food product from the ingredients listed. Therefore, it is wise to look at both the nutrition label and the list of ingredients before you buy the item.
The purpose of the nutrition label is to let consumers know more exactly what they’re eating and how it can affect their health. Just knowing what ingredients are in a food product doesn’t give you this information. However, you should not ignore the list of ingredients. This is especially true if you have food allergies or a special diet (such as vegetarian). Also, you can get an idea of the quality of a food product from the ingredients listed. Therefore, it is wise to look at both the nutrition label and the list of ingredients before you buy the item.
Serving Size
The nutrition information listed on the label is based on a single “serving size” of the food product. The FDA has now made this a bigger, more realistic amount of food. The actual weight of this serving size is also listed, plus the amount of such servings in the package. However, if the label says there are four servings in the package – and you know that you eat half of the package at a time – then the nutrition figures listed are only half of what you actually consume. It is very important that you adjust, if needed, the listed figures to reflect the actual serving size that you actually eat.
Added Sugar
The new label has a new piece of information called “added sugar”, which is listed right under the existing figure of “Total Sugars”. The amount of added sugar includes any sugars that are added during making the food product, including ingredients like honey, high fructose corn syrup, brown sugar, or malt syrup. Many medical experts say that these added sugars are particularly problematic regarding health conditions such as diabetes and obesity. It is also recommended by many experts that you should pay attention to the “Total Carbohydrates” figure as well if you are concerned about these kinds of health problems.
Fats
The previous nutrition label showed how many calories came from fats. The new label has discontinued this information and shows the total amount of fats in the food product, plus how much of that total is from Saturated Fat and Trans Fat. This reflects recent studies that show the amount of calories from fat is not as important as what kind of fats you are eating. Both saturated fat and trans fat have been identified as possible sources of several kinds of bad health conditions.
Vitamins and Minerals (bottom of the label)
Vitamins and minerals are an important component of your dietary health. The new label has removed the listings for vitamins A and C and substituted them for vitamin D and potassium. This was done because recent statistics show that many more people are deficient in their Vitamin D and potassium consumption than for Vitamins A and C. Also, there is recent evidence that these deficiencies can greatly contribute to causing certain health problems.
Daily Values (DV)
The DV figures are what the FDA recommends as the daily amount of a specific type of nutrition you should consume. The new label reflects changes in the DV for several nutrients, including fiber, potassium, and calcium. Continued to be listed is the percent DV (%DV), which details how much of a specific nutrient’s DV is in the listed serving size of that food.
