The Rosetta Stone for Packaged Food Labels

Much like the Rosetta Stone helped decipher ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics, this guide will help you translate
the nutrition label into everyday English with information relevant to your health.

Since serving size may not reflect portion, calculate what you’re actually eating

Using the example of 2 full cracker sheets = 1 serving…Let’s say we actually eat 6 full cracker sheets. Three times as much, so we need to multiple everything on the label by 3 to calculate nutrient intake.

390 Calories within a 2,000 Calorie diet is about 20% of your daily Calories. 9 g fat is about 14%.

Nutrient2 cracker sheets# Servings6 cracker sheets
Calories130 kcal/td>x3390 kcal
Total fat3 g/td>x39 g
Sodium135 mg/td>x3405 mg

 

Trans fats are super sneaky

Turns out food processors only need to report trans fat if there’s more than 0.5 g per serving present. If 0.49 g is present, your label will read 0 g. (Don’t put it past manufacturers to make the serving size the “right” size to list 0 g on the label.) When we’re eating more than the recommended serving size, trans fats add up. Let’s assume we noticed hydrogenated or partially hydrogenated oils in the graham cracker ingredients list – secret code for trans fat! So, knowing hidden trans fats exist, a larger portion size will look like this:

Nutrient2 cracker sheets# Servings6 cracker sheets
Trans fats0 gx31.5 g

See what they did there? You just unknowingly ate 1.5 g of health-harming trans fats

The sweet stuff is not so sweet

Sugar is another tricky ingredient. Food manufacturers include a lot of sugar in products but don’t want you to know about it. The American Heart Association recommends women consume less than 25 g and men, less than 35 g daily. How much are you actually consuming?

Nutrient2 cracker sheets# Servings6 cracker sheets
Sugar8 gx324 g

4 g sugar = 1 tsp
24 g / 4 g/tsp = 6 tsp

By eating more graham crackers, not only did you just eat an entire day’s worth of sugar if you’re a woman, but you’ve had the equivalent of 6 tsp of sugar. Glancing at the package wouldn’t tell you that.

If you would like some customized support to delve deeper into your health and nutrition, let’s chat.


© Purpose Inc., The School of Applied Functional MedicineTM

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