Gatorade. Good but Good Example of a Product that Needs LABEL READING!
In my teenage years, I would very often overlook nutritional panels on foods and just eat them. As I got into junior college, I looked for things that said “fat free” on them, and a few years after that, I started looking at calories on items. Now, a few moorree years later (:)), I am really learning about the importance of checking a nutritional panel before I buy or consume a food.
I’m no nutritionist but over the years I have learned a lot of food labels, how to read them, and what’s important on them (for me, at least).
Serving Size on Cereal can be easy to over-do!
First, serving size. I used to get this yogurt a loongg time ago that was vanilla yogurt with a pack of granola in a plastic cup on top. Oh man, it was good. I’d buy it on my breaks at night when I worked at a grocery store. I thought it was amazing. It tasted amazing anyway. A year or so ago I found that same yogurt and thought I’d check it out, to see what I was downing all those late nights. The crunchy, delicious granola on top? 3 servings in one little plastic cup! The granola had more calories than the yogurt! I just about died. I had already started reading serving sizes at this point but for those of you who skip past it, check it out.. let my yogurt-granola story be a lesson to you! 
You’ve been warned! Also, now that restaurants are posting nutritional values for their items it might not hurt to take a look at the serving size, especially when eating easy-to-divide items like mini-anythings, salads, or appetizers. They don’t post the nutrition content in every restaurant here in California yet, but Tracy says that in New York, they are just about everywhere. Man, I’m a little scared for that to happen here
Sugars, Sugars, Sugars!
Second, sugar. Just because something has a main ingredient of say, oh, fruit, doesn’t make it healthy. Dried fruit is high in sugar and thus should be eaten in moderation. Other things that tend to be sneakily high in sugar are ready-made foods like freezer meals (also high in sodium), coffee creamers (the flavored ones especially), cereals, granola bars, etc. Hey, my rule of thumb is if it tastes sweet, you might wanna check out the sugar. Once I ate a bowl of oatmeal with dried and fresh fruit mixed in and the total sugar of the whole meal? More than in a candy bar 
That instance made me cry and learn to check the sugar content on stuff! Also beware of “no sugar added” because all that means is that it wasn’t added in the processing but it may very well still contain a bunch of sugar. Watch out for all that sneakiness!
Starbucks Knows Better! They say "Reduced Fat" instead of "Low Fat".. Smarties
Third, low. The word low can be very misleading. “Low-” claims can be used on all foods that can be eaten often without going over the limit for one or more of these nutrients: saturated fat, cholesterol, fat, sodium, and calories. What that means is that an item can be labeled as “low-” something as long as it’s per-serving has one of the following nutrient claims:
-Low in Saturated Fat: 1 gram or less
-Low-Fat: 3 grams of fat or less
-Low-Cholesterol: 20mg or less (and 2 grams or less Saturated Fat)
-Low-Sodium: 140mg or less per serving
-Low-Calorie: 40 calories or less
But what about #1? If an item is 4 servings per container and packaged in a such a way that one believes one container = one serving, you’d actually be consuming 120 calories. Granted people should pay attention to labels, we don’t always, do we? Just be careful because the “low” claims can sometimes lead one to believe you’re consuming a low-fat (or other) product but reality? You may not be. You could be consuming the “low” version of that company’s product which may be, in comparison to actual healthy products, quite unhealthy OR you are over-consuming a misleading product and therefore not receiving the benefits of their “low” claims.
Other things to pay attention to are sodium, protein, and carbohydrates. Depending on your specific diet, you may need to pay attention to certain things. But for an average person (like me! I’m average!) I think those six things are covering a lot of important bases!
If you’re curious about how much you should be consuming (this would be good to know when reading labels or else you might be in the dark!), here are some helpful sites you can visit:
- How Much Protein Do You Need?
- How Much Sugar Should We Eat?
- How Many Carbs Should I Consume Daily? (Cool little calculator about a third of the way down the page!)
What are some things YOU look for on a nutrition label? How did you learn about your proper/desired daily nutrient intake?
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