Reading Labels
Reading labels is an essential part of any weight loss program.
Being able to clearly identify key components of a food item is
vital to the success of your diet. You have to be careful when
you read the label and be extremely thorough. Labels are placed
on food items because it is required by law. Marketers are
forced to display this information but it does not keep them
being tricky about it.
Lets take a look at a sample label.
See here we have the Serving Size of the food item. First we
have the Serving Size which is 1 oz. or 28 grams. Then there is
the Servings Per Container which is 16. This is where you have
to be careful. On small items like a bag of chips or cookies,
people tend to skip this part of the label and go straight to
the Amount Per Serving Section. This where you will kill
yourself. Most small items have a Servings per container with
more then 1. They usually have 2 or even 2 1/2 servings per
container. Not being aware of this, people do not correctly
calcuate the Nutrition Facts for that item. When they think they
are eating 200 calories in reality they are eating 400 or even
500 calories.
Next thing to look at is Calories and Calories from fat. Most
people only look at the total calories. Here we see that this
item has 190 calories. Not alot of calories. But here is the
killer. Calories from fat is a whopping 150. Making this item
over 80% fat. A big misconception of people who read labels is,
there is not a lot of saturated fat because the lablel says only
2grams of saturated fat. Wrong, there is another 15 grams of
fat. Where does this come from? My best guess is that about
another 10 -13 grams of fat are trans fat which is the fat
responsible for obesisty.
Next we see the % Daily Value. This is recommended daily
allowance set by the FDA. This item has a total of 25% fat
inregards to your recommened dailiy aloowance. That means that
is you eat 4 of these food items, your fat intake would have to
be cut off for the rest of the day.
Another item we should look @ is Total Carboydrates. This is the
evil demon among low-carb dieters. The FDA's recommended daily
allowance for carb intake is around 330 grams per day. There are
good carbs and bad carbs. The bad carbs would be considered
Sugars. In this case there is only 1g of sugar and 3 g of
Dietary Fiber. In regards to carb intake this is a good product.
Then there is the protein. The more the better. Remember this
fact. 1 gram of protein and carbs are the equvalient to 4
calories. 1 gram of fat is the equivalent to 9 calories. I hope
this article has cleared up some issues in regards to reading
labels. An educated dieter is a successful dieter.