Food labels: Most important points

Do you read food labels when you go food shopping? Well you definitely should. I'm sure you know something about food labels, but here is the most important points.

Ingredient List:

• The ingredient list goes from the most abundant ingredient first to the least abundant ingredient last. So the first 4-5 ingredients you read should be real food, not sugar, high fructose corn syrup, cane sugar, or anything you cant pronounce or recognize. 

Food Labels: 

The most important things to notice are these:

• Always look at the serving size! A bottle of soft drink usually has 2 servings, so the calories written is only for 1/2 the bottle. The amount of food we consume is usually larger than the serving noted, so it is important to look at serving sizes. 
• Calories from fat: This is the amount of calories of the serving that comes from fat. You should choose foods with less than 30% of calories coming from fat.
• Total fat: this number is the amounts of grams of fat. Ideal foods should have less than 4 grams of fat per serving
• Saturated Fat: This number should be as low as possible, because saturated fat is the kind of fat that increases your cholesterol. Monounsaturated fatty acids is the best source of 
• Trans fat: This number should be 0 g, you should not consume any food with trans fat, this fat is worse than saturated fat. 
• Cholesterol: An ideal food should have less than 200 mg per serving. 
• Sodium: An ideal food should have less than 140 mg per serving.  
• Total Carbohydrates: This is the amount of carbs in that food, and you want this number to be substantially larger then sugars. You want dietary fiber to be high, ideally at least over 4 grams per serving. If the amount of sugar is similar to the total carbohydrates it means most of the carbs are simple which means it will not keep you full very long. You want to consume foods with complex carbohydrates and high in fiber. 
• Vitamins: Foods with at least 20% of many vitamins and minerals are ideal 

Hope this helps! 

xoxo, 

Danielle 

Any health questions? just ask me!