Understanding Food Labels
If you want to make healthy choices, navigating the aisles of a supermarket can feel overwhelming as you try to decipher seemingly complex food labels especially when you’re tight for time!
At Love Your Gut, we totally recognise these feelings of confusion, so we want to help make your next shopping trip a little less stressful and empower you to understand labels at a glance.
Becoming a Label-Savvy Shopper
First up – the nutrition table!
Most pre-packed foods have a nutrition information table on the back or side of the packaging.1 These labels must include the amount of:
- Energy in kilojoules (kJ) and kilocalories (kcal) – simply known as calories
- Fat (including saturated fat)
- Carbohydrates (including sugars)
- Protein
- Salt
and will sometimes include other nutrients e.g., fibre, vitamins and minerals.
This information is provided per 100g (or 100ml) and sometimes per portion. But be aware that the portion size listed on the label may be different from what you consider a portion size!
The nutrition information table often includes percentage values based on recommended daily intakes, helping you gauge how a portion of a particular food could fit into your daily diet. Remember, these are just guidelines – everyone’s needs are different.
Next – the ingredients list!
Ingredients are listed in descending order by weight.1 This means the first ingredient is what’s present in the highest amount, while the last ingredient listed is present in the smallest amount.
Spot some words in bold text? These highlight the presence of common allergens. This means you can quickly spot and avoid allergens, making your food choices more informed when needed. In the UK, 14 allergens have to be declared if present within the food: celery, cereals containing gluten (e.g. wheat, rye, barley, and oats), crustaceans (e.g. prawns, crabs and lobsters), eggs, fish, lupin, milk, molluscs (e.g. mussels and oysters), mustard, peanuts, sesame, soybeans, sulphur dioxide/ sulphites and tree nuts.
Now, let’s talk about those big, hard-to-pronounce words that often cause confusion. While it might be tempting to think that a long, scientific-sounding name is a red flag, that’s not always the case. While it’s wise to be cautious, not all complex names indicate something harmful. For example, “docosahexaenoic acid” is a type of omega-3 fatty acid which is important for heart, brain and eye health2 while “alpha-tocopherol” is simply another word for vitamin E.
Lastly – the traffic light labelling system!
The front-of-pack traffic light labelling system uses three colours – red, amber and green – to indicate the levels of fat, saturated fat, sugar and salt in food products.3-4
Put simply:
Green = Low
Amber = Medium
Red = High
Imagine your food choices are like a set of traffic lights. Just as you’d slow down at amber and stop to think at red while driving, you can do the same with your food choices. In general, if a product has lots of green on the label this means it is a healthier choice.3-4 But equally, there’s no need to slam on the brakes and avoid red-labelled foods altogether, it’s just best that foods containing lots of red on their label should be eaten less frequently and in smaller amounts – all foods can have a place in a well-balanced diet!
The traffic light labelling system isn’t perfect and doesn’t capture all of the nuances in nutrition. For example, a product containing avocado or nuts such as almonds or peanuts could be labelled red for fat, but these foods are high in monounsaturated fat which has heart health benefits.5 Nevertheless, the traffic light colours can be a quick and easy way to compare similar products.
So, what really matters?
By understanding food labels such as the nutrition table, ingredient list and traffic light labelling system, you can make more informed decisions when shopping while acknowledging that no single food will make or break your health – as long as it’s all consumed in moderation as part of a well-balanced diet.
At Love Your Gut, we’ll always shout about the importance of diet diversity – that’s what our gut bugs love! Consider your plate like a rainbow of flavours and nutrients. The more colourful and varied your diet, the more likely you are to get a wide range of essential nutrients. Check out our recent Eat the Rainbow blog for more information.
References
- uk (2014) Food labelling and packaging. Available from: https://www.gov.uk/food-labelling-and-packaging/ingredients-list
- Ghasemi et al. (2019) Crit Rev Food Sci Nutr 59(11):1684-1727.
- NHS (2022) Food labels. Available at: https://www.nhs.uk/Livewell/Goodfood/Pages/food-labelling.aspx
- British Dietetic Association (2022) Food labelling: nutrition information. Available from: https://www.bda.uk.com/resource/food-labelling-nutrition-information.html
- NHS (2023) Fat: the facts. Available from: https://www.nhs.uk/live-well/eat-well/food-types/different-fats-nutrition/#:~:text=Monounsaturated%20fats%20help%20protect%20your,spreads%20made%20from%20these%20oils