“You are what you eat.”
How often have you heard this quote and what does it mean to you?
It may sound like a cliché but to me it means that the food you eat has a significant effect on the health and wellbeing of your body and mind.
Picture this… You have just bought a new spanking car. You are rightly very happy since you have been saving all your earnings for this car over the past few years. You treat this car like your own baby.
Let’s say your new car is a diesel. When you fuel it you make sure you feed it diesel. You do not feed it some other fuel for the simple reason that the diesel pump is not conveniently located. Now let us apply this example to your body and the food you consume. Your body should be fuelled with the right food and not just any other food simply because it is more convenient.
Unfortunately we know that in reality things do not work like this for many people. Rather than seeing food as fuel for the body the majority see the consumption of food as a convenient appetite satisfier or time killer.
A success story is the result of several steps, taken gradually one after the other. Success does not happen at the touch of a button. Similarly converting to a healthier lifestyle requires a process which kicks off with a decision or a motivation to eat healthier.
Healthy food choices require a certain degree of knowledge; which knowledge includes how to read a nutritional label on food products or beverages. In fact being able to read and understand food and drink labels will help you make the right healthy choices at the supermarket. So where should you start?
How to read a nutritional label in 3 simple steps:
1. Note the serving size
The serving size is always found at the top of the label. Serving sizes are standardised to make it easier for a consumer to be able to compare like with like products. So if we take cereal as an example the serving size is usually around 30 to 40g meaning this is the indicative size your cereal portion should be. It is therefore important to take note of the serving size to make sure you are not overeating. This is what the famous ‘portion size’ is all about.
2. Note the calories per serving size
The calories (referred to as ‘kcal’) per serving will tell you the units of energy you will get after consuming a serving size of that particular product. This piece of information is highly important for you to be able to keep track of your daily caloric intake. If you do not pay due attention to the calories per serving size you will surely exceed the energy you require which as you surely know leads to weight gain.
Double the serving size = Double the calories.
Furthermore very often on the food label one can also find references to one of the following % figures:
- % Daily Value
- GDA % (Gross Daily Allowance)
- RDA % (Recommended Daily Allowance)
This percentage is based on a 2000 calorie (kcal) diet which is the average daily requirement for moderately active women or fairly sedentary men. Hence if one consumes a packet of pizza which has, say 2200 calories, one may very possible be already exceeding his daily allowed caloric intake. Not very smart right?
3. Note the macronutrients per serving size
This reading is also very important. Macronutrients refer to proteins, carbohydrates and fats and a nutritional label will give you the ratio of macronutrients per serving size and many times also per 100g. I can’t stress enough on how vital it is for you to read through this information when buying your food and beverages as in its absence you will not be able to watch your daily intake of each of the macronutrients.
When one is looking for a healthy option we recommend sticking to low amounts of sugar, trans fats, saturated fats, sodium and cholesterol per serving and looking to go for products which are high in dietary fiber, vitamin A, vitamin C, calcium and iron.
To fitness with love,
Martina
Can you please clear something up for me. When reading carbohydrates there is more often than not a sub category for sugars. I was under the impression that carbs were transformed into glucose (blood sugar)? Why do labels state weight of sugar and what is its relevance? As always a great article – knowledge bomb!
Hi Ray 🙂 The composition of carbohydrates is a question posed by many people who try to follow their daily macronutrient intake. For some reason the only sub-categories displayed under carbs on a nutritional label are dietary fibre and sugar. Carbs can be split into 3 main branches: complex carbs, starchy carbs and sugars. The latter 2 have a high glycemic load meaning they both tend to lead to spikes in blood sugar when consumed. Complex carbs have a low GL and hence are referred to as healthy carbs.
Furthermore you should note that When dietary fibre is listed under carbs this is not to be considered as energy and strictly speaking the grams of dietary fibre are to be deducted from the grams of carbs to obtain the real number of carbs available for energy. This does not mean that dietary fibre is bad. Far from it. Dietary fibre is very healthy as described here: https://www.mirrorfriendly.com/nutrition/the-importance-of-fibre-in-healthy-diet/ and it is also important that this remains listed on the nutritional label for the reason coming below…
You will certainly question why the 3 aforementioned sub-categories of carbs are not individually listed on a nutritional label. Right. We also question this. However you will be able to get a good idea of the carb composition of a product by referring to the amount of dietary fibre per serving. If the ratio of dietary fibre to carbs per serving is higher than 1:10 then you can conclude that the missing carbs in the formula are mostly complex carbs. If on the other hand the ratio is lower than 1:10, then the product tends to be high in starchy carbs. For example the featured nutritional label in this product has 37 carbs of which 4g are dietary fibre i.e. a ratio of fibre to carbs which is higher than 1 is to 10. Therefore the net amount of carbs (37 – 4) is mostly complex carbs.
Hope that is the answer you were looking for! 🙂
Hey Martina, thank you for the long educational reply – I very much appreciate it. I’m learning so much. Keep up the excellent work on this wonderful site.