What foods fit in a healthy diet? How can you compare the nutritional values of food? Can the new food label help you answer these questions?
It can, if you use the label information to follow the Dietary Guidelines for Americans.
The Food Guide Pyramid can help you put the Dietary Guidelines into action. The pyramid illustrates the research-based food guidance developed by the U.S. Department of Agriculture and supported by the Department of Health and Human Services. It is based on USDA's research on what foods Americans eat, what nutrients are in these foods, and how to make the best food choices to promote good health. It outlines what to eat each day, but it is not a rigid prescription. You can use it as a general guide in choosing a healthful diet that is right for you. The pyramid calls for eating a variety of foods to get the nutrients you need, and, at the same time, the right amount of calories to maintain a healthy weight. It also focuses on fat because most American diets are too high in fat, especially saturated fat.
You don't have to avoid foods that are high in fat, saturated fat, cholesterol, and sodium completely. It's your average intake over a few days, not in a single food or even a single meal, that's important. If you eat a high-fat food or meal, balance your intake by choosing low-fat foods the rest of the day or the next day. The new food label can help you "budget" your intake of fat, saturated fat, cholesterol, and sodium over several days.
The new food label also can help you identify good sources of fiber and vitamins and minerals.
Look to the Label
How does it do this? First, descriptors such as "free," "low" or "reduced" on the front of the package can signal that a food is low in a certain dietary component, such as calories, fat, saturated fat, or sodium. Eating those foods can then help you moderate your intake of these and other nutrients.
Descriptors such as "good source" and "high" can help you identify foods that contain significant amounts of dietary fiber, vitamins, and minerals. (See "A Little 'Lite' Reading.")
Claims about the relationship between a nutrient or a food and the risk of a disease or health-related condition also may show up on the front of the package of FDA-regulated products. These are called health claims, and FDA has authorized seven of them (see updated information). They can help you identify foods with certain nutritional qualities that are of interest to you.
However, you don't have to select only foods with descriptors or health claims on the label to follow the Dietary Guidelines. In moderation, all foods can fit into a healthy diet.
Second, look at the nutrition panel, now titled "Nutrition Facts." With a few exceptions, the nutrition panel will list calories, calories from fat, and the amount of nutrients of greatest public health concern contained per serving of the food. Similar information also will be available voluntarily for some raw foods.
On the nutrition panel, nutrient content will be expressed not only as an amount by weight but also as a percent of the Daily Value, or DV--a new label reference value.
These percentages can help you decide whether a food contributes a lot or a little of a particular nutrient. Lower percentages indicate the food contributes less of the nutrient, and higher percentages indicate that it contributes more of the nutrient.
Look to see whether the nutrients you would like to get more of (such as carbohydrate, dietary fiber, and vitamins and minerals) have high percentages and the nutrients you may need to limit (such as fat, cholesterol and sodium) have low percentages. The percent Daily Values, while based on a 2,000-calorie diet, will indicate in a relative way the nutritional contributions of a food to your diet regardless of your calorie intake.
Also, because serving sizes are now more uniform across product lines, comparing the nutritional content of foods is easier.
However, the amount of food you eat may be different from the stated serving size. For example, the serving size for ice cream is a half cup, so if you usually eat one cup of ice cream, you would have to double the number of calories and the percentages of the Daily Values listed to learn the nutrient content of the portion you eat.
Figuring Fat
While the food label provides a reliable general guide for most people, you may want to use the information on it to make more personal choices.
You may be concerned about fat, for example. The Dietary Guidelines suggest you eat a diet providing 30 percent or less of calories from fat and less than 10 percent of calories from saturated fat. Thus, the recommended upper limit on grams of fat and saturated fat in your diet depends on the calories you need (see chart on page 60). Percent DVs for fat and saturated fat are based on a 2,000-calorie diet, which is about right for moderately active women, teenage girls, and sedentary men.
Some people keep a running total of the amount of fat and saturated fat they eat in a day and compare this to their target level. If you eat about 2,000 calories a day, you can simply monitor the percent DV information from the foods you eat so that the total is close to or less than 100 percent over the day.
If you eat fewer than or more than 2,000 calories a day, you can keep a total of the actual amount of fat and saturated fat contained in the foods you eat. This information is listed immediately after the nutrient name (for example, "Total Fat 13 g").
Daily values based on an intake of 2,500 calories a day are listed in a footnote, at least on the nutrition panels of larger packages. These values can be used as a target level for many men, teenage boys, and active women.
The chart on page 60 lists recommended upper limits of fat and saturated fat intakes for other calorie levels. Many older adults, children, and sedentary women need fewer than 2,000 calories a day and may want to select target levels based on 1,600 calories a day. Some active men and teenage boys and very active women may want to select target levels based on 2,800 calories per day.
Sugars and Others
The percent DV column also can be used to help you moderate your intake of sodium and cholesterol. The Daily Values for sodium and cholesterol are the same for everyone, regardless of total calories consumed, so you do not have to make adjustments based on your caloric needs.
Food labels also can be helpful if you're trying to moderate your sugar intake. The nutrition panel lists the amount of sugars in grams (4 grams is equivalent to 1 teaspoon) in a serving of the food.
Note that this amount includes sugars that are present naturally in the food (such as lactose in milk and fructose in fruit), as well as sugars added to the food during processing. If you're interested in finding out whether a sweetener has been added to a food, check the ingredient listing. Terms such as "sugar (sucrose)," "fructose," "maltose," "lactose," "honey," "syrup," "corn syrup," "high-fructose corn syrup," "molasses," and "fruit juice concentrate" are used to describe sweeteners added to foods.
If one of these terms appears first or second in the list of ingredients, or if several of them appear, the food is likely to be high in added sugars. A percent DV is not given for sugars because there is no target quantity of sugars to aim for each day.
Labeling of the alcohol content of beverages is regulated by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms. Alcohol content (in percentage by volume) appears on the front panel of some alcoholic beverage labels. Alcohol content of foods and beverages is not required to be listed on the nutrition panel. However, some alcoholic beverages, such as light beers and wine coolers, provide information about the amount of calories, carbohydrate, protein, and fat they contain. You may find this information useful if you're counting calories because alcoholic beverages are generally rich in calories and poor in nutrients.
You'll find lots of information on food labels. So take the time to read them. The information can help you plan a healthful diet that meets the recommendations of the Dietary Guidelines.
Etta Saltos is a nutritionist with USDA's Human Nutrition Information Service.
The Dietary Guidelines, developed by the Department of Health and Human Services and the U.S. Department of Agriculture, represent the best, most current advice for healthy Americans 2 years and older. They reflect recommendations of health and nutrition experts, who agree that enough is known about the effect of diet on health to encourage certain eating practices. The seven Dietary Guidelines are:
This is a mirror of the page at http://www.fda.gov/fdac/special/foodlabel/pyramid.html
