Understanding The Food Labels.

This article briefly describes and helps you understand:

• The main sections of a food label and state what they mean
• Apply the principles of the 'use by' and 'best before' dates
• Determine foods that are appropriate for you in terms of nutritional value and compare similar foods
• Select appropriate food using the traffic light symbols
• Explain the problems associated with additives and preservatives.

What's the difference between natural and processed Foods? 

Natural foods: include Meat, fish, dairy products, bread, vegetables and fruit.

Processed foods;  Jars of sauce, convenience meals, crisps, cola type drinks and snacks are examples of processed foods. With processed foods you have no idea what you're getting unless you read the label.

A food label for instance on tinned food shows:

1; The name of the product .

2. The product company.

3. The ingredients.

4.  The customer service address and phone number

5. Any instruction for using the product. 

6. Dietary information/ allergy advice / suitable for gluten free and vegetarians etc. 

Dates on food products:
Some food products bought from the market have 'use by' or 'best before' dates on it. This is because the processed food goes off or spoils with time.
Some times Using the spoiled food can cause food poisoning a medical emergency.

There are two types of dates on food:
Use by date -  which ,means don't eat food after this date
Best before date - you can use this product after this date but it will start to get worse after this date.

Foods which spoil quickly such as protein based foods like meat, fish and dairy products have a use by date and could not be used after that date.  These food are usually kept in the fridge. 

Foods that you generally don't keep in the fridge like packet food, tinned food and jars of sauces. have a best before date. 

Nutritional information
Most food labels show nutritional information, which lists the fats, proteins and carbohydrates etc.

The fat label: The fat part of the label shows two things: Fats - this gives the total amount of fat
Of which saturated fat - this is the amount of saturated fat which counts as part of the total fat.

The Carbohydrates label and sugar: The carbohydrates label has 2 parts like the fat label:
Carbohydrates - this gives the total amount of carbohydrates Of which sugar - this is the amount of added sugar which counts as part of the total carbohydrates.

Remember Sugar gives you very limited nutritional value, just loads of added calories.

Comparing foods: is always done in a certain way

The nutritional information on a food label has to be listed in such a way that you can pick up 2 different brands of tomato soup, for example, and compare them.
There will usually be a table showing how many of the following there are per 100 grams of the food:
Calories
Protein
Carbohydrates
Of which sugars
Fat
Of which saturated fat
Salt
Per serving or per portion

As well as listing the nutritional value for 100 grams, food labels may also list information about the value of the food per serving or per portion. A 400 gram tin of tomato soup, for example, is usually enough for two people, so the label shows how many calories, protein, carbohydrates, fat and salt there are in a recommended portion of 200 grams.

Traffic light symbols - labels made easy
Some supermarkets and manufacturers have started putting traffic lights on their food to show us the amount of sugar, fat and salt in the food.
Red = high level
Yellow= medium level
Green = low level

So, a green light on the fat symbol shows the food is low in fat and a red symbol on the salt label shows it's high in salt.

Problems with processed food: Unless you eat things straight out of the ground or off a tree, a lot of food is changed or processed in some way. Pasta for example is processed from wheat, but is still
a really healthy food.

The processed foods that can cause us problems are ones that are high in fat, sugar and salt. These are
added to processed foods quite often because they are cheap. However, fat, salt and sugar are the things that we should be cutting down on in our diet.

Some examples of possible unhealthy foods include:

• Convenience (ready to eat) foods - often high in fat and salt
• Take away foods - especially if high in fat (deep fried)
• Biscuits, cakes - high in fat
• Chocolate bars - high in fat
• Snacks like crisps - high in salt and fat
• Fizzy drinks - often high in sugars (see section on drinks).

If you are going to buy processed foods, try to go for the ones which are low in salt and fat.

If they are bad for us, why do we eat them?
A good question. Why do we eat them?

Fat is really tasty and gives us a lot of calories. It's that simple!
Primitive men and women had very little food so they were really keen to get food especially fats, and we are programmed in the same way.

What about snacks?
Some snacks are made from reprocessed or rehydrated potato and other carbohydrates. So they are not as healthy to start off with. Then they add fat and salt and other flavourings.

Example A bag of crisps is usually 35 grams. It's high in fat and salt, but the good thing is it's usually made from real potato.

What are additives?
Chemicals are added to processed foods to make them look more colorful and keep the food from going off (preservative).
A lot of additives are made from the tar left over from processing coal.

Problems associated with food additives:  Additives are often linked to hyperactivity in children and other forms of difficult behavior, such as children finding it more difficult to concentrate etc. Some more than others Some people (not just children) are more affected by additives than others, just like allergies. Try changing your diet if you think they may be affecting you or your child.

E numbers are man-made chemicals which are added to food. They don't occur in natural food, only processed food.
E numbers are in loads of things but especially:
Soft drinks
Sweets
Ice-creams
Yoghurts
Jellies
Blancmanges etc.

Some countries like Norway have banned all E numbers. Others, like America, have banned certain ones. More and more supermarkets are taking them out of their own-label foods.

Example: 

Sodium benzoate E 211
This is not a coloring agent. It's a preservative that is very widely used because it keeps food and drink from going off for longer. The problem is that it can react with vitamin C to form benzene which can cause cancer. So if you've got E 211 (sodium benzoate) in a juice bottle containing vitamin C (ascorbic acid E300) then there could be a problem. It's not banned in many countries, so be careful.