How To Read Food Labels For Healthy Eating

Knowing what’s going inside your mouth is of paramount importance for a number of reasons.

True, one of the easiest ways to know what you’re putting inside you is to not be such a fucking whore, but that’s another matter for another day and requires a lot of wishful thinking.

When it comes to food, what we’re obviously talking about here, what you want to do is exercise your literacy and read the nutrition facts panel.

And by “read”, that means actually reading the food label and knowing what the words and numbers on it mean instead of just pretending to in the middle of the goddamn grocery aisle so people think you’re actually being mindful of what you eat and won’t judge you for the crap you’re about to put in your cart as they circumnavigate around it…

…though your cart has nothing in it because you’re not shopping for much but you decided to grab one anyway instead of a fucking basket so you could now take up the whole goddamn aisle!!!

Nevertheless, knowing how to read can change your world, something your teachers used to tell you. While they were lying about that and a bunch of other shit, reading food labels can indeed change your world by helping to reduce the risk of certain diseases, manage the symptoms if you’re already fucked up, and control your weight if you just want to be on some vain shit and look good, which you do, you shallow piece of shit.

So join me in showing you how to use the nutrition facts to

• find out the nutritional value of foods

• compare similar products

• increase or decrease the intake of a nutrient

1. SERVING SIZE

The serving size for this product is 2 presumably dry and stale crackers, like all crackers usually are.¹

All the nutrition info on the label is based on one serving of the food. So if your inner fatty eats 10 crackers, the amounts of everything quintuple.

Quintuple? That just means fivefold. Oh, fivefold means a number or amount is five times as great. Awwww, fuck it! Ten crackers just means you ate five servings!!!

The number in parenthesis (14 g) is how much a serving weighs on a food scale if you listened to your coach and actually bought one instead of thinking you can eyeball shit.

As for what “servings per container” means, that’s pretty self-explanatory and doesn’t require much explanation.

That, however, doesn’t mean I’m not going to explain it — but not because I doubt your intelligence.

Certainly not!

I’m just going out of my way to explain something as simple as “servings per container” because I doubt everyone else’s intelligence, but certainly not yours!

Now, there are about 21 servings in the container, which means there should be 42 crackers in the entire package.

Yeah, very complicated stuff for the rest of these dingbats but certainly not for you!

2. CALORIES

As much as you may think you run on caffeine, sarcasm, and inappropriate thoughts, you bloody don’t.

Calories are the units of energy that the body uses to power itself. That energy is obtained from food, with one gram of fat providing 9 calories and one gram of carbs and protein supplying 4 calories, respectively.

The amount of energy provided in one serving of this product, or 2 dry ass crackers, is 60 total calories.

When we do the complex calculation of adding the macronutrients together, we get a number that rounds up to 62 total calories per serving.²

But wait, 60 total calories is what’s listed on the label.

My, aren’t you observant!

Alas, it’s too bad that your supreme powers of observation are being squandered — SQUANDERED!!! — on being able to notice that 62 is greater than 60 instead of, you know, picking up on the obvious clues that your significant other is significant othering someone else.

Anyway, what gives?

Nothing, really.

It’s normal to have slight differences in calorie content, much of which is owed to rounding errors brought on by U.S. Food and Drug Administration guidelines governing how companies label their food products.

NOTE: For a 2000 calorie diet, a food item with 40 calories per serving is considered low, 100 calories per serving is considered moderate, and 400 calories per serving is high.

3. % DAILY VALUE

Ever wanted to know how the nutrients in one serving of a product fit in with all the other garbage you’ll somehow stuff down your face during the course of a day?

Of course you haven’t, but if you did, look no further than percent daily value, which puts nutrients on a scale from 0 to 100 percent to help you determine if a serving of food has a little or a lot of a nutrient, with 5% or less considered low and 20% or more considered high.

The percentages in the column don’t altogether add up to 100 percent — not that you’re capable of doing the math or would’ve even bothered to.

Instead, the percentage given for each nutrient is based on 100 percent of that nutrient’s daily requirements for a 2,000 calorie diet.

For example, if you were to eat 2,000 calories, 2 dry and more than likely stale ass crackers provide 3 percent of the total carbs you should eat per day but always overshoot then blame for why you’re fat instead of, I don’t know, your eating in excess of how many calories you were supposed to eat had you not been gluttony personified and worthy of victimhood in Se7en, a 20-plus year old film that I’m now going to spoil the fuck out of and not feel guilty about because you’ve had more than enough time to share in the surprise of Detective Mills’ wife’s head being what’s in the box at the end of the movie.

4. NUTRIENTS

The nutrients listed first are the ones you shouldn’t eat as much as you fucking do.

Look for foods with a daily value of 5 percent or less. That means the nutrient is low in that item…and probably tastes boring.

Sure, fat, cholesterol, and sodium are what make food taste delicious, but they also raise your risk for all types of fun shit. I know, I know, they make food taste sooooo delicious, though!!!

While most Americans eat more than their fair share of fat, cholesterol, and sodium, they don’t get enough fiber, vitamin A, vitamin C, and minerals like calcium and iron.

Since you’re like most Americans, eat more of those key nutrients by aiming for foods with a daily value of 20 percent or higher.³ That means the item is rich in fiber or a certain vitamin or mineral.

You know, if you want to improve your health and not, like, get heart disease, osteoporosis, and high blood pressure, the fun stuff I completely glossed over above.

Total Fat

The entire amount of fat from all kinds of dietary fat in a product is found here. An individual breakdown of saturated fat and trans fat is usually found beneath to provide further information on how they contribute to the total fat count. It’s generally advised to get no more than 25 to 30 percent of your daily calories from fat.

Saturated Fat

Too much saturated fat can raise LDL, or “bad”, cholesterol levels, which can increase the risk of heart disease, stroke, and other health problems. Mainly found in cheese, beef, butter, and ice cream but also present in plant foods like palm and coconut oils, saturated fats should account for less than 10 percent of your daily calories and an item with more than 1g of saturated fat per serving should be limited.

Trans Fat

Used by food manufacturers to give their products a desirable taste and texture, trans fatty acids from partially hydrogenated oils are associated with an increased risk of heart disease and stroke because they not only elevate “bad” cholesterol levels but they also lower “good” HDL cholesterol. A higher risk of developing type 2 diabetes is also associated with this type of dietary fat. It’s strongly encouraged to limit your intake of trans fat to less than 1 percent of your daily calories.

NOTE: A product can be listed as “0 grams of trans fats” if it contains less than 0.5g of trans fat per serving. This means that an item may contain trans fat even when the label says it doesn’t. You’ll have to check the ingredients list for partially hydrogenated oils to see if that’s actually the case that the product is free of trans fat. As stated below, this is why it’s critical to check the ingredients list to ensure that a product doesn’t contain something that you don’t want it to.

Cholesterol

Cholesterol is a waxy, fat-like substance that the liver makes for all the body’s needs but it can also be obtained from animal products. While you should limit the amount of cholesterol you eat, especially if you have heart disease or diabetes, dietary cholesterol isn’t as big of a problem for most people as it was once thought of now that it’s understood that the mix of carbs and fat in your diet has a larger influence on blood cholesterol levels than the amount that comes from food.

Sodium

Sodium is an essential nutrient that the body needs for a number of functions. The problem is that the amount of sodium, or salt, required by the body is small and most Americans get too much of it thanks to the use of the nutrient as a multi-purpose ingredient. And with too much sodium comes increased blood pressure from salt drawing greater water into the bloodstream and increasing the volume, which in turn makes the heart have to work harder and can lead to heart attack, heart failure, stroke, kidney disease, and blindness over time. For these reasons, it’s advised to reduce sodium intake to less than 2300mg per day.

Total Carbohydrates

This section provides info about the carbohydrate content of a food item. Here, all the sugar, starch, and dietary fiber contained in a serving are listed, with an individual breakdown of dietary fiber and sugar found beneath to provide further info on how they contribute to the total carbohydrate content.⁴

Dietary Fiber

Dietary fiber is a nutrient found in all plant foods. There are two types of it, the soluble and insoluble variety, and they each have their own benefits.

The latter bulks up stool and has a laxative effect, as its particles irritate the inner lining of the intestinal tract and stimulate the secretion of water and mucus, which then speeds up the transit time of things passing through the colon. The former lowers cholesterol by absorbing water and expanding to create a gel that takes up space in the stomach, which then moves slowly through the intestines and “grabs” cholesterol, as well as fat, sugar, bile salts, and other substances in excess that require excretion.

While fiber is a carbohydrate, humans lack the enzymes to digest it. So depending on the variety, it may contribute 2 calories per gram because it passes through the body without being fully absorbed. That’s if it’s soluble. If the fiber is insoluble, it may be subtracted from the total carbs because the fiber provides absolutely zero calories because it’s not fermented by the gut.

Sugar

One of the three types of carbohydrates, sugar is a nutrient that’s found naturally in some foods and added as an ingredient to many others during the manufacturing process.

The entire amount of both natural and added sugar found in one serving of a product is displayed as “Total Sugars”. Indented and directly below “Total Sugars” is the line for added sugars, or those sugar carbohydrates that aren’t naturally present in the given food product but are added at some point before consumption.

The “Added Sugars” line can clue you in on whether a food or drink contains added sugar, of which it’s recommended to limit to less than 10 percent of total daily calories to help reduce the risk of obesity, diabetes, stroke, and heart disease that’s associated with high added sugar intake. No such risk is associated with natural sugar thanks to many of the foods it’s common in being rich in fiber. Processed items with added sugar are often devoid of that key nutrient.

Protein

Protein is a macronutrient that provides four calories per gram. Along with carbohydrates and fat, protein is one of the body’s primary sources of energy.

Protein is particularly important for the building and repairing of cells and tissues and is involved in fluid balance, immune response, blood clotting, and production of hormones and enzymes, among other body processes.

Use the Nutrition Facts label to make sure that you’re getting enough protein for your body’s needs.

Protein is usually only listed on food and beverage packages by the number of grams of protein per serving. Food manufacturers are only required to provide the % Daily Value (%DV) for protein if the product is intended for infants and children under 4 years of age or a claim is made for protein, such as it being “High in Protein” or a “Good Source of Protein” or containing “more protein” than another product.

5. INGREDIENTS

The ingredients list shows what?

My, aren’t you just a natural rocket scientist! Yes, the ingredients list shows all the ingredients in a packaged food, with them listed in descending order by weight, or highest to lowest amount used.

That means our dry ass crackers contain more unbleached enriched flour, the first ingredient, than yeast, the very last ingredient.

After unbleached enriched flour, the next most present ingredients are soybean oil and partially hydrogenated cottonseed oil. As a general rule of thumb, if the first three ingredients include refined grains, a type of sugar, or hydrogenated oils, then you probably shouldn’t be eating the product. Seeing that one of the first ingredients for these dry ass crackers is a partially hydrogenated oil, you have a reason not to eat them besides them being dry ass crackers.

Another rule of thumb is to avoid food products with more than five ingredients, as well as ingredients you can’t pronounce, as they’re red flags that whatever you’re going to eat is heavily processed and devoid of great nutritional value.

Regarding the former, just because something has a small ingredients list doesn’t mean it’s automatically healthier than an item with a larger one, as there are many processed foods with only five ingredients thanks to food manufacturers discovering ways to tinker with their products after getting hip to consumer demand for fewer ingredients and their mistaken belief that less equals healthy. As for the latter, you’d probably be relegated to eating almost nothing because there are a lot of things you can’t pronounce because…ummmmm…you’re not that cultured or educated!

Glossary: calories, diet, dietary fat, fat, hormones, nutrition

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Monster Longe

Monster Longe is a personal trainer in San Diego. He has been lifting weights for +25 years and training clients in the gym and online for about half of that time. When not working with clients or making content that's easy to read, understand, and apply to everyday life, he enjoys long walks and leaving buildings crushed and entire city blocks decimated in his wake.