Arming yourself with the knowledge of how to read a nutrition label on an item of packaged food is the key to navigating the thousands of products out there on supermarket shelves and making healthier food choices for yourself and those who you cook for.

Your health goals and personal tastes will dictate whether one item is 'better' than another, however it may even just help to increase your awareness of what it is that you're putting into your body.

Here are some tips to help you read nutrition labels.

Serving size vs. per 100 mls/grams

Each of these are relevant in their own way. Many people believe you only ever need to pay attention to the ‘per 100 grams' (or mls) column; this is useful if you are comparing one product to another, such as two different types of peanut butter.

However, if you are looking at a single portion that is less than 100 grams - such as a muesli bar that weighs 75 grams, you might want to look at the ‘per serving’ column to compare to another muesli bar that only weighs 60 grams. This is because you would only ever eat one serving, rather than 100 grams of the item.

Calories or Kilojoules

This is the amount of energy in your food or drink. There are roughly 4.2kJ in every calorie (so 420kJ = 100 calories). While we don't believe calorie counting is a good way to manage food intake for the majority of people as it removes our own intuition from our eating habits, the amount of energy your body requires each day varies depending on your gender, age, weight, height, history, medical or health conditions, and how active you are. This means that if you're looking at a packaged food item which shows the energy provided in calories or kilojoules, it may help you to use your overall energy requirements as a rough idea when selecting something from the supermarket.

To maintain weight (i.e. not lose or gain) it will likely be around 1800-2,350 calories for women, and 2,400-3,000 for men. So if you’re purchasing a packaged readymade freezer meal that contains 800 calories in the serving, you know it will take a decent chunk out of your daily energy allocation.

Fat

This can come from a range of different sources; to reiterate what we covered before, there are good fats (typically plant-based) and bad fats (typically from animal origin). Good fats can have a positive effect on your heart health, while bad fats can do the opposite if not eaten in moderation. Labels don’t tend to break down what type of fat you’re having, but know that trans fats are the really bad kind and they will often be labelled separately. And again, be wary of health halos from good fats if you’re trying to lose weight; any type of fat contains 9 calories per gram. That’s regardless of whether it’s in coconut oil, butter, lard, deep fried chips, raw nuts or avocados.

Sugar

A little sugar in moderation is okay, a lot of sugar – especially the refined kind is not so great. We reckon the media and hype documentaries have blown this out of proportion in the wrong way; sugar is often not a problem if you do the vast majority of your food preparation and cooking at home (and eat almost nothing out of a packet, i.e. cook and bake from scratch). However, the problem of excess sugar intake has arisen from us eating too many packaged foods and takeaways as we are unable to keep tabs on how much has gone into them.

Sugar gets added to things as it makes food tastier. Sauces, drinks, readymade meals, marinades, baked goods, muesli bars, cereals… you get the idea. Everything. And if it’s not consumed in moderation it can throw energy levels and hormones out of whack and create a range of health problems. Use the sugar number information to compare one product with another so you can make better choices.

Sugar can occur naturally; there are natural sugars such as lactose (milk sugar) and fructose (fruit sugar) which aren’t so bad and are not a reason to be scared of eating fruits or dairy products. Most breads contain sugar, and if you buy baked goods for treats you can typically expect there to be some refined sugar just as you would expect there to be some in home baking. However, many products have unnecessarily large quantities of sugar added. Look for ingredients that end in ‘-ose’ (sucrose, glucose, fructose, dextrose) and corn syrup. The other key thing you need to know is that 4 grams of sugar = one teaspoon.

Sodium

A little salt is okay, a lot of salt on a regular basis can affect your cardiovascular system and encourage issues with heart health. Sodium is commonly added in takeaways and packaged goods to make them tastier. We checked out a well-known Asian takeaway restaurant’s nutritional information for one of their most popular noodle bowls and it had almost a week’s worth of sodium in the one meal! The Ministry of Health advises that low-salt foods have less than 120mg of sodium per 100g, moderate-salt foods have 120-600mg p/100g, and high-salt foods have more than this.

Ingredients

These are always listed starting with the biggest ingredient first. For example, if a list shows ‘Flour, sugar, baking powder, salt’, the product is mostly made from flour, then sugar etc. We always believe it’s best if you can recognise all the ingredients on nutrition labels as things you might stock in your pantry or fridge at home. If you see numbers like 621/E621 then it will have E-numbers, or additives which can include colourings, flavours and preservatives. Other long or complicated ingredients which sound like chemical names are ones we would probably benefit from eating less.

GIVE IT A GO:
When it comes to reading nutrition labels, just give it a go. Start off by trying to compare two similar products and choose the one with the attributes that work better for the nutrition goals you're trying to achieve.