Nutrition Facts Labels are designed to help busy people make better food choices. But they’re still so complicated.
Reading the nutrition facts is an important way to understand what we are feeding our kids (and ourselves!). So let’s go over the four most important areas to understand on the Nutrition Facts label.
1. Calories
Calories are basically the energy that the food provides.
The calories will now be bigger and bolder than ever before. This makes finding info like the number of calories much easier to find. Calories from fat is gone! There are a few different types of fat, and the type of fat actually makes more of a difference than the calories from fat. So from now on the Nutrition Facts will be focusing more on the type.
2. Fat
Total fat, saturated fat and trans-fats will still be labeled in both grams and the percentage of your daily total. Especially when dealing with kids, who tend to eat less than adults, it’s good to understand fats in different terms.
Remember, fat should provide less than 30% of your daily calories, while saturated fats should count for less than 10%. Converting grams into percent of calories requires a little bit more math, so pay attention to the fat content of foods.
3. Carbohydrates
Carbs are confusing!
Nutrition facts already show total carbohydrates, total sugar and total fiber. The new label also separates “added sugar” from total sugar.
There are a few different types of carbohydrates, so this new label helps distinguish between sugar that natural occurs in fruit, and sugar that is added to candy bars. Sugar is a bit of a sticky word! The general idea is to limit added sugars to 10% of total calories and the label displays added sugars in both grams and percent of RDA.
Here’s a detailed breakdown of everything you need to know about carbs.
4. Vitamins & Minerals
All of the label changes aim to help us make better food choices and this section is no different. Although vitamins and minerals may not be as popular, the FDA made several smart choices with the changes in this section.
These are the top 4 vitamins & minerals that you need to worry about.
Vitamin D
This vitamin is super important for bone development, but recent research now links this vitamin to heart disease, cancers and even alzheimers. Such an important nutrient, yet so many people are deficient. So the new label helps bring some awareness to our levels of vitamin D.
Potassium
Everyone knows about potassium in bananas, but it’s now becoming more apparent that potassium plays an important role in controlling blood pressure. People are pretty aware of diets high in sodium being unhealthy, but so are diets that are low in potassium. And, much like Vitamin D, many Americans do not get enough potassium in their diets.
Calcium
Got Milk? For years, we’ve been hearing about calcium and bone health, but people are still not getting enough. No wonder labels require this important nutrient.
Iron
Again, super important, especially in growing children and pregnant women. Also the most common nutrient deficiency. Which means we all could try to get a little more iron in our diets.
Vitamin A & Vitamin C
Well the good news is that people are getting these important nutrients. Vitamin A and Vitamin C were both celebrated for health benefits, and now it’s very rare to find people in America who are deficient in either. Time to move out of the way, A and C, and let the Nutrition Facts shed some light on some overlooked nutrients.
