Healthy Food Choices: Reading Food Labels

Reading the labels of food items is important to properly balance a diet and uncover less obvious ingredients in food products. Try these tips for reading food labels in this healthy shopping video.

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All packaged foods must have food label
Note the serving size
The percents are part of 2.500 calorie diet

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Michelle Cooper has been a registered dietician for more than 10 years. She currently works for the state of North Carolina for the New Hanover County School District in the Child Nutrition Department as the supervising registered dietician on staff. She specializes in child nutrition, child fitness and overall child health. She enjoys her job because it allows her to be a pivotal piece of child development.

MICHELLE COOPER: The next thing we're going to talk about is how to read a food label. All packaged foods are required to have a food label. You won't find this on fresh produce in the produce isle; however, on any box or packaged food, you will find a food label. When reading the nutrition facts, the first thing you want to do is note the serving size. Serving size for this cereal is one cup. There are about 10 servings in a box. Also, it will give you the total amount of fat that's in the box. For here, it's 1.5 grams. They'll also list it as a percentage. That percentage is a percentage of fat that's in a standard 2,500 calorie diet. It will also give you the percentages for some nutrients such as potassium, protein, vitamin A, C, calcium and iron. It's important to note that these are for a 2,500-calorie diet. If your diet requires more calories or less calories, the percentages are going to go up and down according to the ratio. So next time you pick up a box, make sure to take note of the food label, take advantage of that, so you can determine what a healthy food choice is. When you're looking at total fat, make sure there's no more than 3 grams per 100 calories. Also, you don't want your sodium level to be more than 2,000 milligrams. And the higher the fiber, the better.

Healthy Food Choices: Reading Food Labels Video

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