Primary Care

Food Packaging Reference Guide

Knowing how to use information on food packaging can help you make better food choices that make a healthy diet. Manufacturers provide information in three ways: nutritional claims, ingredients lists, and the nutrition facts panel.

view nutrition label quick guide

Dietary Guidelines

• Eat a variety of foods to get the energy (calories), protein, vitamins, minerals and fiber you need.

• Maintain a healthy weight to reduce your chances of having high blood pressure, heart disease, a stroke, certain cancers, and the most common kind of diabetes.

• Choose a diet low in fat, saturated fat, and cholesterol to reduce your risk of heart disease and certain types of cancer. Because fat contains more than twice the calories of an equal amount of carbohydrates or protein, a diet low in fat can help you maintain a healthy weight.

• Choosing a diet with plenty of vegetables, fruits and grain products provides needed vitamins, minerals, fiber, and complex carbohydrates. They are generally lower in fat.

• Use sugars only in moderation. A diet with lots of sugars has too many calories and too few nutrients for most people and can contribute to tooth decay.

• Use salt and other forms of sodium only in moderation to help reduce your risk of high blood pressure.

• If you drink alcoholic beverages, do so in moderation. Alcoholic beverages supply calories, but little or no nutrients. Drinking is also the cause of many health problems and accidents and can lead to addiction.

Ingredient List

Ingredients are listed in order from the most to the least. The earlier you see an unhealthy ingredient listed, the less healthy that food product is for you.

Types of Fat

There are four types of fat - saturated, monounsaturated polyunsaturated and trans. Like saturated fats, trans fats are bad for the heart and should be avoided. At this point in time, these are not yet listed under "Nutrition Facts." You should look in the ingredients section for phrases such as hydrogenated or "partially Hydrogenated" fat, oil or shortening to learn if they are present in the food you are buying.

Sugar

To find out whether a sweetener has been added to a food (beyond sugars that are present naturally) look for terms such as sugar (sucrose), fructose, maltose, lactose, honey, syrup, corn syrup, high-fructose corn syrup, molasses, and fruit juice concentrate.