For some food-conscious folks, calculating the calories in everything they consume is part of their daily eating habits. For others, knowing approximately how many calories they eat or drink helps them make smart dietary choices. Calculating the nutritional value of food is relatively simple and can go a long way in choosing one item over another during meal or snack time. Over time, it becomes easier to eyeball portion sizes or guess how many calories you've consumed without doing all the math.
How to Calculate the Nutritional Value of Food
Step 1
Understand food labels. The best source of information of what's in your food is a nutrition food label, which is usually found on the packaging of the food or drink. The basic information listed on a label includes serving size; the amount of servings in the bag, box or carton; total number of calories; calories from fat; ingredients (listed most abundant to least abundant); and the amount in grams of other nutrients like protein and carbohydrates.
Step 2
Calculate calories from grams. Nutrition labels will tell you how many calories are in a serving of food, but besides fat, they don't tell you where those calories are coming from. There are 4 calories per gram of protein and carbohydrate, 9 calories per gram of fat and 7 calories per gram of alcohol. For example, if an item has 14 g of carbohydrate, multiply 14 by 4, and you will get 56 calories from carbohydrates.
Step 3
Calculate the percentage of calories from a certain nutrient. In order to get the percentage of carbohydrates in that serving, you take the number of calories from carbohydrates, 56, divided by the total number of calories--let's say 100--to get 0.56. Now multiply 0.56 by 100 to get 56 percent calories from carbohydrates.
Step 4
Understand portion sizes. You won't always have a nutrition label or calculator handy to quickly figure out what you're going to eat. In these cases, it's a good idea to learn approximate serving sizes so you can give an educated guess about nutritional value. For example, a proper portion size of meat is the size of a deck of cards, 3 oz. If you have already calculated that information from a previous meal or package, when you're out or at a friend's and have a piece of meat, use your deck of cards portion size to figure out how much you should be eating and at what caloric cost.
Step 5
Know the colors of nutrition. Aside from counting calories, there are other ways to calculate the nutritional value of food. For example, bright green foods are rich in vitamin C and folate. Foods that are yellow or orange are high in beta-carotene. Eating a variety of colors will help you consume a wide variety of nutrients.
Step 6
Learn the lingo on food labels. If you read a label that claims the food or drink is reduced fat, that means it has 25 percent less fat than the regular brand, according to KidsHealth.org. The light or lite claim means that a product has 50 percent less fat than the regular product. Finally, a low-fat claim means a product is less than 3 g per serving.
Tips and Warnings
- Foods that claim they are low fat often have much more sugar than the regular product.
Things You'll Need
- Calculator
- Nutrition label
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