The NZS.com Nutritional Information article contains information on how to read nutritional facts on food labels, understand fat content, energy, carbohydrates, sugars and more.
Understanding Nutritional Facts on Labels
Learning how to read nutritional information and facts on the labels of your food is essential in maintaining a healthy diet and for weight loss. Learn how to understand energy content in kilojoules, fat content, protein, carbohydrates, sugars and more.
Understanding nutritional information about the meals you eat starts at the supermarket when you're loading things into your trolley. Every food product sold in New Zealand must have the nutritional information printed on its label by law. After reading a couple of labels, you'll begin to understand how nutritional information works - an essential skill for a healthy diet.
Nutritional labels are broken down into the following segments: energy, protein, fat, carbohydrate, dietary fibre and sodium. Each nutritional segment will contain the total servings per package, the serving size, and will break down the nutritional content by both per serve measures and per 100g (percentage) measures.
Energy
When preparing food at home from packets, it is important to understand the total amount of energy (measured in kilojoules) that you are putting into each meal. Kilokoules are the metric scale of the imperial 'calories', which is a more popular term worldwide, however in New Zealand nutritional facts on labels are presented in kilojoules.
If you only read one thing on nutritional labels, the Energy segment is it, as understanding kilojoule intake is very important to a healthy diet. Your body needs a certain amount of kilojoules everyday to run on, and every extra kilojoule not burned through daily tasks or exercise will be stored in your body as fat.
Compare your favourite foods and look for the options which have the lowest kilojoules per 100g. Choosing foods which are low in kilojoules means weight moderation will be easier. Low kilojoule foods equal less energy to burn, meaning your body will start to burn fat after consuming the energy you have eaten.
A product that is low in fat or low in sugar may still be high in total energy. It is important to understand that fat and sugar do not cause weight gain, excess energy intake does (it just happens that high fat and high sugar foods are almost always very high in kilojoules). However, many low fat or low sugar foods may still be high in kilojoules for many reasons. They could be replacing fat for sugar or vice versa, or be high in carbohydrates or high in protein. Read our article on diet food for tips on low kilojoule food options.
Protein
The protein segment is important to look at if you are trying to gain muscle, as protein is the most essential ingredient for healthy weight gain. High protein foods will range from 10 to 25g per 100g, meaning they are 10 or 25% protein. If protein consumption is not used correctly by being coupled with exercise however, it will be stored at fat.
Fat
A low fat food is often considered anything with 5g of fat or less per 100g. In general, everybody needs to stay away from foods high in fat, but there are exceptions to this - choosing the right fat. On labels, all fat content will be broken down into saturated fat, which is the most important fat to avoid. If a food's saturated fat is a large portion of its total fat, stay away!
Fat may also be broken down into three more segments: monounsaturated, polyunsaturated and transaturated. Mono and poly fats are healthy fats, and are found in foods such as nuts, avocado and olive oil. These are essential fats for a healthy body - you do need some fat in your diet. Trans fats, like saturated fats, are unhealthy and should be avoided, as they raise blood cholesterol, increase the risk of heart disease and cause unhealthy weight gain.
Carbohydrates
Carbohydrates are important in a healthy diet, but it is important to balance the carbohydrates you eat with adequate exercise and daily tasks. Therefore, eating higher carbohydrate foods at the start and middle of the day will mean you'll burn them off before the end of the day, when you should eat lower carbohydrate foods.
The carbohydrate segment is broken down to include the sugar content, which for a healthy diet, you want to keep low. Sugar only produces very short-lived spurts of energy and if not used, turns to fat.
Dietary Fibre
Foods high in dietary fibre are easily digestable, and essential for the wellbeing of your body's health. Foods with more than 6g of fibre per serve are high in dietary fibre, and are important for a healthy bowel.
Sodium
Sodium is the salt content in your food. Sticking to foods with low sodium is key in regulating healthy blood pressure. Sodium is measured in milligrams (mg), and average adults should not have more than 2300mg per day.
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