Weekly Wellness Tips

Tips for reading food labels

You head down the aisle, pushing your shopping cart with the broken wheel. You reach for the same groceries you reached for a couple of weeks ago and dump them into the basket. Wait—did you even look at the nutrition label?

March 26 was American Diabetes Alert Day, but you don’t have to be diabetic to care about the nutritional value of the food you put into your body. Read the labels on your food. Nutrition facts tell you the serving size and the amount of various nutrients, such as total fat, saturated fat, cholesterol, sodium and fiber per serving.

Here are some tips to remember while reading:

• Ingredients are listed in descending order by weight
• The serving on the food label may not be the same as the serving size in your food plan or the serving you normally eat; so if you eat twice the serving listed on the label, you would need to double all the numbers in the Nutrition Facts section
• A “free” food is one with less than 20 calories and 5 grams carbohydrate per serving (i.e. diet soft drinks, sugar-free gelatin dessert, sugar-free ice pops)
• Sugar-free does not mean carbohydrate-free; compare the total carbohydrate content of a sugar-free food with that of the standard product
• Fat-free foods can be higher in carbohydrate and contain almost the same calories as the foods they replace.  A good example: fat-free cookies. “Fat-free” foods are not necessarily a better choice
• Foods in very small packages, prepared in the store or made by small manufacturers are exempt from including a label

Source: www.diabetes.org