The Nutrition Facts Panel: Calorie Control Is In Your Hands

Laura Rayburn is a writer for YoNaturals Organic Vending Business, and has created this content to better inform Americans regarding nutrition. Organic and natural vending are the solution to so many problems in our society, including obesity and early onset diabetes. Check us out at YoNaturals.com to find out how we are creating a better tomorrow.
The power to control your daily calorie intake is in your hands. No joke. The power is quite literally in your hands each time that you hold a package of food up to inspect its food label. The key to harnessing this power is to learn how to properly interpret the information that is given on these food labels, the information required by law to be presented to you so that you can make these very choices. So, you may ask, what kind of information is presented on these labels?

The most familiar food label is the nutrition facts panel that is most often found on the side of a box or the back of a bag of canned, frozen, or otherwise processed food. As the name suggests, it provides information on the nutritional content of the food contained within the package. At the top of the label you will find information on the suggested serving size and the number of servings per container. You should pay special attention to the serving size that is listed on the panel and recognize the fact that all the other nutritional information found in this panel is calculated based upon the serving size. For example, people are often surprised to learn that the people who make labels for 20 oz. bottles of soda pop count only 8 of those ounces as one serving, and that anyone who drinks an entire bottle of it should actually multiply all of the nutritional information by 2.5 to get more accurate numbers regarding calorie intake, as well as sodium and sugar intakes!

Don’t worry, even though these estimations are on the lower end of the spectrum regarding the amount of food that people normally eat, the calculated serving sizes are still provided in units that most consumers are familiar with: measurements such as cups, tablespoons, or pieces. Additionally, these measurements are also displayed by another value that is the serving size’s calculated metric value.

Once you have a grip on the serving size that the manufacturer had in mind when labeling the food, then you can begin calculating the amount of calories, fat (saturated and unsaturated), cholesterol, sodium, and carbohydrates that are contained within the product. You will also find on this nutritional panel a column that is titled “Percent Daily Value” that will give you an idea of how much of a nutrient will be provided by the food product. Remember though, those percentages listed on the panel are calculations based on the typical adult’s 2000 calorie per day diet, and will change based upon the total number of calories that you eat within a day.

As stated above, with this one simple (and easy to read) label, the power to make more informed decisions about where you and your loved ones are obtaining most of your calories and other nutrients is in your hands. The rest is up to you

This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 13th, 2008 at 4:56 pm and is filed under YoNaturals Organic Vending. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments. You can comment below, or link to this permanent URL from your own site. Your comments will appear immediately, but I reserve the right to delete innapropriate comments.