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Get Your Nutrition Facts Straight

The Nutrition Facts food label gives you information about whichnutrients (say: nu-tree-ents) are in the food. Your body needs the right combination of nutrients, such asvitamins, to work properly and grow. The Nutrition Facts food label is printed somewhere on the outside of packaged food, and you usually don't have to look hard to find it. Fresh food that doesn't come prepackaged sometimes has nutrition facts, too.

Most nutrients are measured ingrams, also written as g. Some nutrients are measured inmilligrams, or mg. Milligrams are very tiny — there are 1,000 milligrams in 1 gram.

Other information on the label is given in percentages. Food contains fat, protein, carbohydrates, and fiber. Food also contains vitamins, such as A and C, and minerals, such as calcium and iron. Nutrition specialists know how much of each one kids and adults should get every day to have a healthy diet. The percent daily value on a food label tells you how this food can help someone meet these daily goals.

On food labels, they base the percentages on a 2,000-calorie adult diet. So looking at the label above for two crackers, a grownup would see that they provide less than 1 gram of fiber, only 3% of the person's daily needs. So that means he or she would have to eat other foods to get 100% of the fiber needed each day. Similarly, the person would see that the crackers provide nothing toward the daily goals for vitamin A, vitamin C, calcium, or iron. 

Comparing Labels

Food labels aren't ideal for kids because they're calculated based on what adults need to eat. A kid's diet might be more or less than 2,000 calories, based on your age, whether you are a boy or girl, and how active your are. Likewise, kids may need more or less of certain food components and nutrients, such as calcium and iron.

But kids can still get important information from food labels. They can get a general idea about what the food contains, how much is in a serving, and how many calories are in a serving. Kids also can use labels to compare two foods. Which one has more fiber? Which one has more fat? Which one has more calories per serving?

The ingredient list is another important part of the label. Ingredients are listed in order so you get an idea of how much of each ingredient is in the food. When something is listed first, second, or third, you know that this food probably contains a lot of it. The food will contain smaller amounts of the ingredients mentioned at the end of the list.

With that in mind, check ingredient lists to see where sugar appears. Limit foods that mention sugar in the first few ingredients. That means it's a very sugary food. Sugar has different names, so it might also be called high fructose corn syrup, corn syrup, sucrose, or glucose.

Serving Size

The nutrition label always lists a serving size, which is an amount of food, such as 1 cup of cereal, two cookies, or five pretzels. The nutrition label tells you how many nutrients are in that amount of food. Serving sizes also help people understand how much they're eating. If you ate 10 pretzels, that would be two servings.

Servings per Container or Package

The label also tells you how many servings are contained in that package of food. If there are 15 servings in a box of cookies and each serving is two cookies, you have enough for all 30 kids in your class to have one cookie each. Math comes in handy with food labels!

Calories and Calories From Fat

The number of calories in a single serving of the food is listed on the left of the label. This number tells you the amount of energy in the food. The calories in a food can come from fat, protein, or carbohydrate. People pay attention to calories because if you eat more calories than your body uses, you might gain weight.

Another important part of the label is the number of calories that come from fat. People check this because it's good to limit fat intake to about 30% of the calories they eat.

How Food Labels Can Help

Food labels are easy to read, and they list a food's ingredients, nutritional information, and calories. So anyone concerned about eating healthy can learn a lot from them. For people with diabetes, food labels also may provide information they need to know to keep their blood sugar on track.

For example, if you are using the constant carbohydrate or the carb counting meal plan, you can look for carbohydrates on the food label. It will tell you how many grams of carbs you are about to eat. The number of carb grams on the label applies to one serving, so be sure to multiply that number times the number of servings you're eating or drinking.

If you're using the constant carbohydrate or the carb counting plan, knowing the amount of carbs you've eaten can help you determine how much medicine to take.

Someone on an exchange plan also might use food labels. How? By looking at the food's breakdown of carbs, protein, and fat. It can help the person know how to classify this food — as a starch, fruit, vegetable, meat, or fat. Then the person knows how to "count" that food while figuring out how many more servings are left in the day.

Food labels also show you how much sodium (salt) is in a food. This is important because some people who have diabetes also have highblood pressure. Too much salt, or sodium, can worsen blood pressure problems.

On food labels, you'll also find information on the amount of fat, the type of fat, and the total calories in a food. It's a good idea for everyone, including people who have diabetes, to keep an eye on these. Eating too much of certain fats can make someone more likely to have heart and blood vessel problems. And eating too many calories can weight gain. If you're curious, your parent, doctor, or nutritionist can help you figure out how many calories you need each day. Use them well!

Write it Down

As you've probably noticed, meal plans mean a lot of keeping track — of the carb grams or the exchange servings you've eaten. To make that easier, you might want to write down what you eat and your blood sugar readings on a record sheet.

Your mom or dad can use this record to help you balance food and insulin so you stay on track. And because it's written down, you won't have to say, "Uh, I don't know" when someone asks you what you ate or what your last reading was!

Reviewed by: Steven Dowshen, MD
Date reviewed: August 2010