Reading a food label can at times feel complicated. I’m here to break it down for you in 5 simple steps.
- Look at ingredient list first!
- Can you pronounce all of the ingredients? In general, if all foods look recognizable as real, whole food, you’re good to go!
- Check the order of the ingredients.
- Typically they are in order of highest abundance, so if sugar is the first ingredient, you know the majority of the product is sugar.
- Looking at sugars.
- Sugar goes by many different names.
- Just to name a few: brown sugar, buttered sugar, cane sugar, carob syrup, high fructose corn syrup to name a few. If this is listed as the first ingredients, you know the majority of the item is sugar.
- Check the added sugar.
- “Added sugar” is a newer addition to food labels, whereas before there was only total sugar listed. As we know, there are natural sugars in a lot of foods (like fruits and vegetables), so we care more about the amount of ADDED sugar in a product.
- Sugar goes by many different names.
- Look at the serving size!
- Is it in line with what you originally thought? Usually they’re much smaller than what you’d think.
- Lastly – take a glance at the calories. Calories are a unit of energy and are meant to do just that – provide energy.
- If an item isn’t very calorically dense, it won’t keep you full and satiated for very long!
