Nutrition labeling is mandatory for most packaged food in the United States. Nutrition labeling is regulated by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Unfortunately for many, what is on the labels can be difficult to understand. Many companies legally and deliberately mislead consumers. In some cases this can put your health at risk. Learn important key terms and learn how to read a food label correctly so you can make sound, educated choices regarding the food you put into your body.

Labeling Terms & Their Meanings

In order to understand food labels completely it is important to be familiar with, and understand key terms used on food labels. Here are some of the meanings according to government mandated definitions:

Key Food Nutrition Label Terms and Their Meanings

Label Nutrition Claims

Besides understanding the food label, consumers should understand the terms above because many food manufacturers make several health claims using the terms above. Studies show consumers are often confused or actually misunderstand the terms. Many manufacturers actually use this confusion to their advantage when marketing their products.

Consumers on special diets because of allergies or other special health conditions definetly need to be aware of nutrition claims posted on foods. Failure to understand the labels could put their health at risk.  For instance, some food labels make claims that they're low in cholesterol or low in fat. But these claims have very specific meanings that most of us aren't aware of. However, although these claims can only be used if a food meets strict government definitions, you have to be careful you don't misunderstand them. For example, the standard for "reduced or less" is always at least 25 percent lower than the reference or original food. Although a label may say that the food is reduced fat or reduced sodium that only means that the amount of fat or sodium has been reduced by 25% from the original product. So if the original product was high in fat or sodium the reduced product will be a notch lower but will likely still be relatively high.

Even if a food is low in fat, the food may not necessarily be nutritious.  Even a low-fat food can be high in sugar. Food companies also may make claims such as "no cholesterol" (meaning there is no animal fat used in making the product), but that does not necessarily mean the product is low in fat.

Nutritional Food Labeling- The Nutrition Facts Panel

The nutrition facts panel typically consists of the following components:

• Serving size information
• Calorie information
• Percent daily value (based on a 2000-calorie diet)
• Nutrient information, and
• A footnote of recommended daily values for standard 2000- and 2500-calorie diets

Unfortunately as simple as this panel appears to be, many consumers do not know how to read it, and determine what the information on it truely means. All is not lost however, studies have shown that with some help in deciphering them the Nutrition Facts label can be an effective educational tool to increase nutrition knowledge.Most people think they understand most of what's important on the food/nutrition labels - for example the number of calories and maybe even the amount of carbohydrate, fat, and protein in the food or supplement. But they're wrong because it's just not that easy to understand and use without some guidance. 

The ability to read and evaluate food labels is not just a matter of choosing to eat healthy. To those of us trying to gain muscle mass and improve body composition choosing the right mix of foods can be critical to our success. And for people trying to manage chronic disease like heart ailment or diabetes, label reading can at times even be a life saving matter.

Information that a Food Label Must Contain

Under the label's "Nutrition Facts" panel, manufacturers are required to provide information on certain nutrients. The mandatory (underlined) and other components that could be listed, and the order in which they should (and in some cases must) appear are:

• Total calories
• Calories from fats
• Calories from saturated fats
• Total fat
• Saturated fat
• Trans fat
• Polyunsaturated fat
• Monounsaturated fat
• Cholesterol
• Sodium
• Potassium
• Total carbohydrate
• Dietary fiber
• Soluble fiber
• Insoluble fiber
• Sugars
• Sugar alcohols (for example, the sugar substitutes xylitol, mannitol and sorbitol)
• Other carbohydrates (the difference between total carbohydrate and the sum of dietary fiber, sugars, and sugar alcohol if declared)
• Protein
• Amino acids
• Peptides
• Vitamin A
• Percent of vitamin A present as beta-carotene
• Vitamin C
• Calcium
• Iron
• Other essential vitamins and minerals
• Caffeine content (especially in various commercial drinks such as sodas and energy drinks) 

What To Look For on a Food Nutrition Label

Knowing what to look for is the first step in understanding nutrition facts labels. The Nutrition Facts Label gives a lot of information but the key is to know how to use this information to help you make the food choices that are right for you.

If you look on the FDA site at you'll find information on how to understand and use the nutrition facts label. The illustration I'm using below is a sample label for macaroni and cheese from www.cfsan.fda.gov. The FDA added the colors to the label for illustration purposes. 

The label is meant to give you specific information on what's in each food product, information that you can use for healthy eating and achieving your goals. The nutrients on a label are ordered from what we should limit, such as fat, cholesterol, and sodium, to those nutrients we need to make sure we get enough of, such as dietary fiber, vitamin A & C, calcium and iron. However, as we'll see, while this information is useful it does have limitations.

Top to Bottom Review of the Food Label

Serving Size:
When you're looking at the Nutrition Facts label on the food product begin your reading at the top of the label with the food's recommended serving size and number of servings per package.

Be sure to compare the serving size to how much you eat. For example, serving size may be 1 cup and you may eat two cups. In that case you're eating double the serving size so you need to double the calories and other nutrient numbers, including the percent daily value.

Calories:

Continue down the label to total calories and calories from fat. Total calories, which includes the calories from fat - and from carbohydrates and proteins, is the amount of calories per recommended serving.

Calories from fat is the total calories in one serving that come from fat. The reason that total calories from fat is listed, and not total calories from carbohydrates and proteins, is because of the emphasis in the last few decades about the health effects of lowering fat in the diet.

Putting this information on the label allows people to easily monitor the amount of fat in their diets, with the general recommendation being that no more than 30% of daily calories come from fat. This translates to no more than 600 calories of an allowable 2000 calories should come from fat. Knowing the total calories from a portion of food allows you to compare the amount of calories in how much you will eat of the food to the total calories you need for a day. If you are trying to manage your weight, choosing foods that are lower in calories will help. Even small differences in calories per serving can add up over the course of a day.In the following example you will see that the total calories per serving is 250, with 110 calories coming from fat (good fat? bad fat? At this point we do not know, but as we read further don the food label, we will know)

• 1 gram of fat contains about 9 calories.
• 1 gram of protein contains about 4 calories.
• 1 gram of carbohydrate contains about 4 calories.

Using some simple calculations you can figure out how much of the difference between total calories and calories from fat comes from carbohydrates and proteins. You can also simply figure out the number of ca