Understanding a Nutrition Facts Label

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Understanding a Nutrition Facts Label
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US Food and Drug Admin
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Sections of a Food Label

• 1. Serving Size at the top
• Green color
• 2. Calories- below serving size
• White color at the top
• 3. and 4. Nutrients
• Yellow and Blue color
• 5. Footnote
• White color at the bottom
• 6. Daily Value
• On the far right
• Purple color

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US Food and Drug Admin
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Serving Size

• How much is the serving size?
• Standard
• Compare similar foods
• Familiar units
• Cups, pieces, tablespoons
• How much actually consumed
• Servings per container
• Multiply if consuming more than one serving
• Total amount of calories and nutrients

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US Food and Drug Admin
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Calories

• Calories per Serving
• Amount of energy in each serving
• Must multiply calories per serving by number of
  servings consumed
• Calories from Fat
• Compare calories from fat to number of calories
  in each serving
• Calculate
• Generally
• 40 is low
• 100 is moderate
• 400 is high

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US Food and Drug Admin
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Nutrients

• Limit These

• Be Sure to Get Enough of These

• Total Fat
• Saturated
• Trans
• Cholesterol
• Sodium
• Adequate or too much
• Can increase risk of chronic diseases

• Dietary Fiber
• Vitamin A
• Vitamin C
• Calcium
• Iron
• Usually dont get enough
• Can reduce risk of some diseases or conditions

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US Food and Drug Admin
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Footnote

• The symbol after the heading Daily Value
  refers to the footnote
• DVs are based on a 2,000 calorie diet
• Must appear on all food labels
• Footnotes are the same on all products

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US Food and Drug Admin
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Percent Daily Value

• DV
• On right hand side of every food label
• Based on 2,000 calorie diet
• Great way to compare food products to each other
• 5 or less is low
• 20 or more is high

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US Food and Drug Admin
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Summary

• 6 sections to a food label
• Serving size, calories,
• nutrients to limit,
• nutrients to get enough of,
• footnote and DV
• Start at the top
• and work down
• Use DV to quickly
• compare one food product
• to another