Nutrition Fact Labels

Whether you're counting calories, curious about a specific nutrient or uncertain what constitutes a serving size, nutrition fact labels can answer important questions about the foods you eat. Under the Nutrition Labeling and Education Act of 1990, all packaged foods must carry a label delineating nutritional information and ingredients. By reading---and properly interpreting---nutrition fact labels, you can gain valuable nutritional knowledge and empower yourself to make smart dietary choices.

Serving Size

• At the top of a nutrition fact label, you will find information about the food's serving size and servings per container. The serving size---often presented in common measurements such as grams, ounces or cups---is the reference for all nutritional information on the label. Because the amount of calories and nutrients listed for a product are based on a single serving, it's important to understand how big or small that serving actually is. Similarly, the servings per container shows you how many servings are in the entire package of food.

Calories

• Below the serving size section is the number of calories---and calories from fat---per serving. Calories measure the amount of energy a food item yields, and calories from fat indicate how much of that energy comes directly from fat. According to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, food with 40 calories per serving is considered low-calorie, food with 100 calories per serving is moderate, and food with 400 or more calories is considered high-calorie. For optimal health, no more than 30 percent of your total calorie intake should come from fat.

Nutrients

• Nutrition fact labels present the amounts of key macronutrients---fat, carbohydrates and protein---and micronutrients---vitamins and minerals---contained in one serving of a food product. In general, the nutrients listed near the top---total fat, saturated fat, trans fat, cholesterol and sodium---are the ones to limit, because they're readily available in most people's diets and may contribute to chronic health conditions. Conversely, most people don't consume enough of the nutrients listed in the lower half of nutrition fact labels, particularly vitamins A and C, calcium and iron. To maintain good health and reduce your risk of disease, the FDA recommends including an abundance of these vitamins and minerals in your diet.

Percent Daily Values

• To the right of the nutrients listed on a nutrition fact label is the percent daily value column, written as "%DV". The percent daily value indicates how much of your daily requirement for a particular nutrient is in each serving of the product. For instance, if a nutrition label lists 10 percent for the mineral calcium, one serving of this food provides 10 percent of the total calcium you need each day. Because trans fat, sugars and protein have no federally established recommended intake, these items have no number listed for their percent daily value. Additionally, the daily values are based on a 2,000-calorie diet, so if you consume more or less than this amount of calories, your nutrient requirements may increase or decrease accordingly.

Ingredients

• At the bottom of a nutrition fact label is a list of the food's ingredients. The list presents each ingredient by weight in descending order; ingredients near the top of the list form the largest portion of the food, while ingredients near the bottom are less abundant. Under the Food Allergy Labeling and Consumer Protection Act passed in 2004, all nutrition fact labels must also state the inclusion of any common allergens, including peanuts, milk, eggs, soy, fish and wheat.