Table of Contents
Food manufacturers are obligated to place a template of this information, known as “Nutritional Facts,” on the nutritional label of the package according to national or international standards, which is exactly what you need as a conscious consumer to know what you are eating. You cannot trust too much advertising or even the claims on the front of the package because they may be misleading. In the end, the factory’s first and last goal remains to entice the consumer to buy its product and ignore competing products.
In this article, you’ll find a guide to understanding each part of a nutritional label, how the nutritional value of different products compares, the tricks companies use to hide facts and deceive the consumer, and what it all means for you whether you want to diet to lose weight or simply maintain a diet. Balanced and healthy.
The components
Before delving into the list of nutritional facts, you will find on the packaging another list that states the physical ingredients that went into manufacturing the product and is arranged in order of quantity from largest to smallest. Knowing the first 3 ingredients will give you an idea of whether the product is healthy or not. If the first ingredients include refined grains such as white flour, a type of fat such as butter or oil, sugar, or hydrogenated oils, then you can consider the product to be unhealthy. Also, the more ingredients used (more than two lines, for example), the more processed the product is, which is not a good thing.
Calories
The number of calories represents the amount of energy that food gives you, and is measured in “kilocalories (Kcal)” or “kilojoules (KJ). Your daily calorie need depends on your age, gender, body size, and level of physical activity. If you eat more calories than your body consumes, it will store them in the form of fat, and over time, your weight will increase over time. So if you want to lose weight, you need to pay attention to calorie content to ensure you consume no more than you need, or to evaluate how much a food contributes to your daily diet.
But the fingers on your hands are not the same, meaning that the 200 calories you get from eating ice cream, for example, are not equivalent to the 200 you get from eating an avocado, even though they represent the same amount of energy, due to the difference in nutritional content of each. Therefore, you find that some companies sometimes place the amount of calories from fat alongside the total calories, as it is recommended to limit the number of calories from fat to 20-35% of the total daily calories.
For example, if the number of calories in a product is 250 calories per serving and 110 calories from fat. This means that approximately 50% of the calories in one serving come from fat. Therefore, this food is not a healthy choice, as it contains a high percentage of fat.
Nutrients
This section contains the basic nutritional elements present in the product, not the ingredients (such as flour, corn, palm oil, etc.), but rather the food group to which these ingredients belong, along with the quantity/amount of each in the form of a table, to help you evaluate The overall nutritional value of the product.
Fats
There are three different types of fats: saturated fats, trans fats, and trans fats. Unsaturated fats – the most famous of which are omega oils – are abundant in fatty fish (salmon, mackerel), vegetable oils (olive, sunflower, corn, and canola), nuts (walnuts, almonds, hazelnuts), seeds (sesame, flax), and avocados. It is considered healthy because it helps protect the heart from fatal irregular rhythms, reduces inflammation, and prevents the formation of dangerous clots in the bloodstream. It also reduces triglyceride levels and cholesterol levels in the blood, thus protecting against cardiovascular diseases.
So the American Heart Association advises that 8-10% of daily calories should come from polyunsaturated fats, and there is evidence that eating more unsaturated fats – up to 15% of daily calories – can reduce the risk of heart disease.
While unsaturated fats are the healthiest type of fat, too much saturated fat – found mainly in animal products such as meat, cheese, and butter, and some vegetable oils such as coconut oil and palm oil – is considered a relatively unhealthy choice, especially since it is linked to the risk of cardiovascular disease. Bloody.
This is despite the fact that it increases harmful cholesterol levels and is closely linked to coronary artery disease, heart attacks and strokes. For every additional 2% of calories from trans fat consumed daily, the risk of coronary heart disease increases by 23%.
Sugars
The sugars inside any product are either naturally present, such as lactose in milk, or are added by the manufacturer to improve the taste. Both types are stated under the total sugar content without mentioning how many of them necessarily represent added sugars. Contrary to expectations, sugar in some form is not only added to sweet foods and drinks, but also to things like bread, pasta sauce, and even foods considered healthy, such as fruit yoghurt. In fact, manufacturers add sugar to 74% of packaged foods sold in supermarkets.
The tricky thing about sugars is that the manufacturer doesn’t directly disclose them in the ingredient list. Instead of including the word “sugar,” dozens of alternative words are used, such as corn sweeteners, maltose, sucrose, malt/rice syrup, honey, fruit juice concentrate, and other terms that hide the total amount of sugar in the form of scattered words so that the word “sugar” does not come first in the list of ingredients.
Daily Value %
Next to each nutrient is a percentage known as the Daily Value (DV%), which represents the percentage by which a serving of food contributes to your daily need of a particular nutrient, assuming that you follow a diet equivalent to 2,000 calories. If the label of a milk package says 30% next to calcium, for example, this means that one serving (one cup) gives you 30% of your daily need for calcium, and you can get the remaining 70% from other sources.
Thus, the nutritional value gives you more than the abstract number related to the amount of nutrients, so that you can determine whether a portion of food is rich or poor in a particular nutrient as the product claims, and whether it contributes greatly or little to your daily diet for each nutrient, as follows:
5% or less of a nutrient per serving is considered low.
20% or more of a nutrient per serving is considered high.
On this basis, you can compare and choose between two cereal products, for example – both of which claim to be rich in minerals and vitamins – by checking the daily value of these nutrients in each.
The daily ratios referred to above assume that you are following a diet equivalent to 2,000 calories – as indicated at the end of the label – and it is a unified system across all products to provide general nutritional advice. So, if you’re on a diet of less than 2,000 calories per day, your Daily Value may be lower than what’s listed on the label, and vice versa. In the end, it depends on your daily calorie needs.
