The Nutrition Facts label was designed to help you make healthy food choices, allowing you to compare the nutrient information between two similar products. In addition to providing specific nutrient information, the food label also shows you how the food item fits into an average daily diet consisting of 2,000 calories with its percentage of daily values.
Purpose
The percentage of daily values on a food label acts as a guide to the amount of nutrients found in a single serving of a food item compared to your daily needs. For example, if a food contains 25 percent iron per serving, that means it meets 25 percent of your daily iron needs. If the food item contains less than 5 percent of the nutrient, it is considered to be low in that nutrient. If the food item contains more than 20 percent of a nutrient, it is considered to be high in that particular nutrient. Even if you do not follow a 2,000-calorie diet, you can use the label to help you find foods high in essential nutrients, and low in saturated fat, trans fat, cholesterol and sodium.
Macronutrients
Macronutrients on the food label include protein, carbohydrates, fat, saturated fat, cholesterol and fiber. The recommended daily needs based on a 2,000 calorie include 50 g of protein, 300 g of carbohydrates, 65 g of fat, 20 g of saturated fat, 300 mg of cholesterol and 25 g of fiber. The percentage of daily values are determined by dividing the amount of the macronutrient in a serving of the food item by the recommended need. For example, if a serving of a food item contains 10 g of protein, it meets 20 percent of your daily value for protein.
Vitamins
Not all essential vitamins are listed on the Nutrition Facts label, but labels are required to provide the percentage of daily value for vitamin C and vitamin A because Americans do not get enough of these nutrients in their diet, according to the Food and Drug Administration. On a 2,000-calorie diet, your daily value for vitamin A is based on 5,000 IU; for vitamin C, it is 60 mg. Like the macronutrients, the percentage of daily value is determined by dividing the amount of the nutrient in the serving of food by the recommended dose.
Minerals
Like vitamin A and vitamin C, the American diet is also low in iron and calcium, and you will also find these nutrients on the food label. The recommended daily need for calcium based on a 2,000-calorie diet is 1,000 mg a day, and for iron it is 18 mg a day. To help meet your needs, look for items that contain more than 20 percent of these essential nutrients. You can determine the amount of the amount of the nutrient a food contains by multiplying the percentage by the amount needed. For example, if a food item contains 20 percent of the daily value for calcium, multiply 20 percent by 1,000 to determine that the food item contains 200 mg of calcium.
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