How to Read a Nutrition Label, Part 1

I want to preface this blog by saying the majority of this has been written by my good friend Ali, a med-student who also happens to be a health and fitness nut.  She knows that the nation’s health problems (and issues with obesity) will cause all kinds of problems years from now in our hospitals (and our tax dollars), so she wants to help me in any way possible get these uber-important messages across to the world.

So you’re here, which means you want to get in shape and change your life.  If you haven’t followed through my first five posts on getting started towards getting in shape, go back and read them…and then come back here.

So you’re getting ready to start exercising, and you know that your diet is responsible for 80% of your success.  You know that all that food you buy in the grocery store?  You need to need to know what you’re eating before you shove it down your throat.  Let’s go through what’s actually on that label:

“You are what you eat.”
Well, not literally…but there is quite a bit of truth to this statement, so it’s not a bad idea to know what you’re putting into your body every time you eat!  Luckilyy for us, the FDA (U.S. Food and Drug Administration) requires a nutrition facts label for most packaged food.  If you know how to sift through the information in the label, you can make healthy food choices and have a healthier body!  Pick up any food in a box in your house, and look at it as you read this blog.

Here’s an overview of the Nutrition Facts label that we’ll go over in this 4 part blog:

1. At the very top of the label, you see “serving size” and “servings per container.”
2. The first part of the label has information about Calories, macronutrients (fat, carbohydrates, protein), and some important electrolytes (sodium and potassium).
3. The second part of the label has information about micronutrients (vitamins and minerals).
4. The very bottom of the label, or sometimes to the side, is a list of ingredients.

Part 1.  Where to start?  Serving size.

• Serving size is pretty self-explanatory; it is the amount of food, by volume or weight, that is considered one “serving.”  Keep in mind that the amount you typically consume in one sitting may be more or less than one “serving.”  (Get out a measuring cup and measure 1 cup of cereal.  Now pour that into your regular bowl.  See?)  Keep this in mind, because your serving size could be way off compared to the listed serving size.
• Most packages will also list the number of servings per container.  For example, a 32 oz bottle of Gatorade is considered 4 servings… even though you’re probably going to drink the whole thing.
• The rest of the nutritional information is based on the listed serving size.  Keep that in mind.  So if you eat or drink 2 “servings,” you’ll need to multiply all the other nutritional facts by 2.  If you eat an entire family-size bag of Peanut M&Ms, there’s 27 servings.

Part 2. Calories

Calories are energy from food.  (For the real nerds, a calorie is the amount of energy needed to raise 1 gram of water by 1 degree Celcius, or 4.184 joules.  1000 calories equals a kilocalorie, or Calorie with a big C, which is the unit we are talking about with food.  Got it?)  This is the simple part: if you burn more calories than you consume in a day you’ll lose weight.  If you consume more than you burn, you’ll gain weight.  It’s science.

Macro-nutrients include carbohydrates, protein, and fats. These are the building blocks of the body.  The calories in food come from these building blocks.  Now, the calories that make up each macro nutrient weigh different amounts.

Macro-nutrient    Calories per gram
Carbohydrate  4
Protein   4
Fat 9

Remember this, when the box says 10g of carbs, it’s 40 calories.  When you eat 10g of fat, its 90 calories.  To figure out how many calories you should eat every day, you can follow this blog.  Part 2 will either come tomorrow or the next day, depending on if I feel inspired yet to write my blog about outdoor fitness.

No, the poison ivy isn’t any better

-Steve

Tagged as: Diet, Nutrition