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Role of food labels in healthy diet


Overview
Food label speak a lot about a package food and present information to the consumer to help them make good and right choices of what to consume. This is the wisdom behind food label.
Food label help in the purchase and serving of the food. When purchasing food, look for the following on the nutritional fact of the food.
1. Total calorie
2. Serving size
3. % daily value.

  • Calorie of the food is contributed by carbohydrate, protein and fat.
Purchase food that has lower contribution from saturated fat and higher contributions from polyunsaturated and monounsaturated fats
  • Serving size gives the number of time the whole food should be served e.g if the food state 4 serving of the whole food and the total calorie provide by one serving is 440kcal, that means the whole serving will supply 1760kcal(440*4). This is very important when serving the food as the extra calories remains in the body and add to ones weight.
  • % daily value(DV) gives the percentage of the recommended daily amount of the nutrients provided by one serving of the food.e.g if the DV for sodium is 14%,it means one serving of the food provide 14% of the individual daily need, and 4 serving will also supply 56% in total.
Any value less or equal to 5% is consider low for any nutrients and value greater than or equal to 20% is consider high for nutrients. Make sure you purchase food that has less value for trans fat, saturated fat, and sodium but high %DV for polyunsaturated, mono unsaturated fat, and dietary fiber. People with hypertension who may have problem with sodium should consider food which supply low % daily value of the mineral while people with cardiovascular disease like atherosclerosis, myocardial infarction should also choose a food with a low % daily value for saturated fat, trans fat and cholesterol as these nutrients possess more threat to the body.

Use the above information about nutrition fact or food label to build a healthy plate and consume a healthy and moderate diet for yourself.
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