Healthy Aging Healthy Aging Nutrition and Fitness

Making Sense of the Nutrition Label

Summary & Participants

Knowing how to read a nutrition label can help you make the right choices when it comes to food.

Medically Reviewed On: August 13, 2008

Webcast Transcript

ANNOUNCER: If you’ve bought packaged food, you’ve seen one of these before. But do you know the right way to read it?

RISA SCHULMAN, NUTRITION EXPERT: The biggest mistake people make is to start looking at the thing that they're concerned with the most before looking at the serving size.

ANNOUNCER: Serving size is the key to judging everything else that is on the label.

RISA SCHULMAN, NUTRITION EXPERT: If a serving size, for instance, is a half a cup, you'll want to know that unless you eat half a cup, you're not getting everything that's listed in that panel. Likewise, you want to know that if you're eating a cup, you're going to be getting twice as much, which is important for ingredients, such as fat and sugar.

ANNOUNCER: The daily value is based on how much of that nutrient someone should have a day on a 2 thousand calorie diet

RISA SCHULMAN, NUTRITION EXPERT: If a serving of food a contains 25% the daily value of calcium, let's say, what that means is that you're getting 25% of the ideal amount that you should be getting in one day. A good rule of thumb with the daily values is that for any given product where you're going to consume a serving size, 5% of the daily value for any nutrient is low and 20% is high.

ANNOUNCER: And don’t forget to check the ingredients too!

RISA SCHULMAN, NUTRITION EXPERT: It’s important to look at the ingredients because there are things there that are not listed on the nutritional label. Trans fat can be listed as zero grams if there is less than a certain amount in a serving size. So you want to look at the ingredients and look for partially hydrogenated. The words partially hydrogenated indicate that there is trans fat in the product.

ANNOUNCER: And just because a food is fat free or sugar free – that doesn’t mean it’s low in calories – or good for you!

RISA SCHULMAN, NUTRITION EXPERT: Fat-free products often then have a lot of sugar in them and vice versa. Sugar-free products have a lot of fat in them. Sometimes the salt content is increased to help improve the flavor of a fat-free product. So again, it's important to understand the total nutritional picture of a food to match it with your nutritional needs.

ANNOUNCER: Making sense of the nutrition label can help you make the right choice when it comes to food. Thanks for joining us on today’s Once Daily.