HEALTHY EATING
Understanding the Nutrition Facts Label
The Nutrition Facts label can help you make smart food
choices by giving you information on serving sizes, calories, and nutrients,
such as saturated and trans fats, cholesterol, sodium, fiber,
vitamins, and minerals. Just look on the back of most food packages to find the
label.
- Read the label to see if a food is a good source of a
nutrient or to compare similar foods—for example, to find which brand of
macaroni and cheese is lower in fat.
- The food label gives you information on the calorie
content of the portions you eat. Check the serving size and the number of
servings per container. Compare this to how much you actually eat.
- The % Daily Values (DVs) that are listed on the
right-hand side tell what percentage of a certain nutrient you’ll get
from one serving of that food. If you want to limit a nutrient, such as sodium,
then choose foods with a % DV of 5 % or less. If you want to eat more of a
nutrient such as calcium, then choose foods with a % DV of 20 % or more.
For more information on the Nutrition Facts label, see
http://www.cfsan.fda.gov/~dms/foodlab.html.
|
