How to Measure the Fat in Food

While fat is an important part of your daily diet, you only need so much of it in your body. Too much and you can jeopardize your health. Experts at the Maryland Heart Center say that the amount of calories from fat that we need each day is relatively low. If you want to make sure that you are getting just the right amount of it each day, there's no better way to do it than by measuring the fat in your food.

Things You'll Need

• Nutrition Label
• Calculator

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Instructions

• 1

  Understanding the things you find on a nutrition label is the first step to learning how to measure the fat in food. The different portions of the label will refer to the different components in the food that you are eating.

• 2

  Take a look at the total calorie content of the food you want to measure. You will usually find this at the top of the nutrition label. It can also say something like "amount of calories per serving" or "calories per serving." This is the same thing --- it simply explains how many calories are in each serving you eat.

• 3

  Look for the fat section on your nutrition label, which includes cholesterol, trans fat and saturated fat. While some labels break down these different forms of fat, you should still be able to find the total number on the label. All you will need is the whole amount of fat that the food contains.

• 4

  Multiply the amount of fat by 9. For example, if the label says that the food contains 6g of fat, you multiply 6 by 9. This will give you 54, which means that the food has 54 calories that come from fat.

• 5

  Divide the amount of calories that come from fat by the amount of total calories in the food. For example, if the amount of calories that come from fat is 54 and the total amount of calories is 250, you then divide 54/250. The amount that you get should then be multiplied by 100 to get the percentage. This would give you 54/250x100= 21.6; this amount is the percentage of calories from fat in the food.