Food Labels
Understanding Food Labels
SCI/241
Shelba Levins
The 5/20 rule is very important when it come to nutrition and eating a well balanced diet. This rule allows you to see how the foods you are choosing to eat fit into your diet. 5% or less is low when it comes to nutrients that you want to get more off like fiber, daily vitamins, calcium and iron. Nutrients that you don’t want much of like saturated fat, cholesterol and sodium you want to stay below 5% as much as you can. When you find something that you think may be good for you make sure it has 20% or more of your daily value of the “good” nutrients. Anything that has 20% or more of the not so good nutrients that I explained means it’s not so good for you. One of my favorite things to eat is tuna mainly Chicken of the Sea tuna in water, so its something I always have on hand in my pantry. According to its food label it’s a very good source of protein because it has exactly 20% daily value. It only has 1gram of fat and the cholesterol is 3%. After learning about how to read a food label and its importance, I never noticed that the sodium is actually 6% (DV), which is higher than you really want it to be.
Understanding what you are reading when it comes to food labels help you compare and decide what foods you are choosing to eat are actually good for you or not. The six key food labels to understand are serving size, amount of calories, what nutrients to limit, what nutrients to get enough of, understand what percent daily value is enough or too much, and the footnotes at the bottom of the label that describes what you need in your daily value. Serving size is used to determine how much you should eat in cups or pieces based on the nutrients, DV, and calories listed on the item. Amount of calories is there to help you count your calories and balance how much you are eating. Limiting nutrients like cholesterol, sodium, saturated
SCI/241
Shelba Levins
The 5/20 rule is very important when it come to nutrition and eating a well balanced diet. This rule allows you to see how the foods you are choosing to eat fit into your diet. 5% or less is low when it comes to nutrients that you want to get more off like fiber, daily vitamins, calcium and iron. Nutrients that you don’t want much of like saturated fat, cholesterol and sodium you want to stay below 5% as much as you can. When you find something that you think may be good for you make sure it has 20% or more of your daily value of the “good” nutrients. Anything that has 20% or more of the not so good nutrients that I explained means it’s not so good for you. One of my favorite things to eat is tuna mainly Chicken of the Sea tuna in water, so its something I always have on hand in my pantry. According to its food label it’s a very good source of protein because it has exactly 20% daily value. It only has 1gram of fat and the cholesterol is 3%. After learning about how to read a food label and its importance, I never noticed that the sodium is actually 6% (DV), which is higher than you really want it to be.
Understanding what you are reading when it comes to food labels help you compare and decide what foods you are choosing to eat are actually good for you or not. The six key food labels to understand are serving size, amount of calories, what nutrients to limit, what nutrients to get enough of, understand what percent daily value is enough or too much, and the footnotes at the bottom of the label that describes what you need in your daily value. Serving size is used to determine how much you should eat in cups or pieces based on the nutrients, DV, and calories listed on the item. Amount of calories is there to help you count your calories and balance how much you are eating. Limiting nutrients like cholesterol, sodium, saturated