How To Read A Label

You can learn a lot from a label—what’s in a package and how good it is for you. But you have to know how to read the label. Let’s see if we can help.

There are two parts to every label, the ingredient listing and the nutrition table. Let’s tackle the ingredient list first.

The ingredients are always listed in order of dominance by weight, that is, the ingredient weighing the most is listed first. You will often see ingredients followed by parentheses. Those parentheses identify what is in that particular ingredient. For example, “chocolate chips” may be followed by “(chocolate, milk solids, and sugar)” indicating that chocolate is the most dominant ingredient in those chocolate chips. By reading the ingredient listing regularly, you will get a sense for how much of a particular ingredient is in the product. You’ll also identify ingredients that you may choose to avoid like hydrogenated oils, now listed as “trans fats”.

In the nutrition table, you will find the serving size and the number of servings per container. The range of serving sizes is dictated by regulation. That affects everything else in the table. The number of servings is simply the net weight of the package divided by the size of servings.

The amounts and percentages listed in the table are per serving and the percentages are the portion of the government’s recommended daily allowance (RDA). The serving size may not be a realistic serving for you. Look again at how many servings are in the package. If you are purchasing a cake and the label says “12 servings” yet you only cut the cake into six servings, then you need to multiply the amounts and percentages by two.

By studying the nutrition table and adjusting it for the serving sizes that you will use, you can determine the nutritional value of the food you are eating.