Here's the Facts on Nutrition Facts

More and more people are making the decision to establish a healthy diet. This means that people are becoming more conscious of what they eat, taking the time to look at the nutrition facts before they make purchases at the grocery store. Oftentimes however,  people don't really know what they should be looking for on a nutrition label. Most people just look at how many calories there are--which is obviously very important--but you should be looking at far more than just calories.

The following is an explanation of what your actually looking at on that label, from top to bottom:

Serving Size: This is very important as this is what all the nutritional information is based on. Be sure to always note the serving size first, without this context everything else is essentially pointless. For example, if it says 100g that means a 100g of the food item will give you everything that you see on the label. Therefore you need to make sure to adjust the rest of the numbers to match your own serving size.

Servings per container: Pretty self explanatory, this tells you how many individual servings (based on serving size) are in the entire product. For example, if it says 4, that means that there are a total of 4 servings in the entire product.

Calories: Most if not all know what calories are. Just remember, it all essentially comes down to calories in and calories out. This is an important thing to keep in mind no matter what your fitness goal.

Calories from fat: Pretty pointless in my opinion, it is just the amount of grams of fat multiplied by 9 (9 kcal per gram of fat). So if something has 10g of fat, then calories from fat will simply be 90.

Total fat: This is the amount of total fat per serving. This includes saturated fat, trans fat, monounsaturated fat, and polyunsaturated fat. Like I said before, fat has 9 kcal per gram, so watch out for high fat content. Saturated fat and trans fats are know as the "bad" fats. Although, some saturated fat in your diet is necessary, about 10% of total fat. Monounsaturated and Polyunsaturated are also subsets of total fat, these are considered "good" fats.

Cholesterol: This is something that most healthy individuals should not really be concerned with, however, it is still wise not to overdue it.

Sodium: Sodium in moderation is necessary for your body to function properly, but too much can be costly to your health. Typically, people get enough or too much from their diet already, adding extra sodium (i.e. salt) is almost always unnecessary.

Total Carbohydrates: This is very important when analyzing a nutrition label. It tells you how many carbs are in each serving, and more importantly what the carb source is; whether it be a simple or complex carb. Carbs equate to 4 kcal per gram.

Dietary Fiber: This is one of the few things that you would prefer to be high when looking at the nutrition facts. This helps slows down the process at which the carbohydrates are digested.

Sugar: High sugar typically mean faster digestion, which is something you DO NOT want from your carbs.

Protein: Another thing you would prefer to be high. Protein plays an important role in the functioning of muscles, glands, organs, etc. Protein equates to 4 kcal per gram.

Daily Value %: In my opinion, this is another value that is completely pointless. Mainly I feel this way because it only applies to a 2000 calorie diet, but also because the FDA requirements for fat, carbs, and protein is absolutely ridiculous. They recommend a fat-carb-protein split to be 30-60-10, which will not help you burn fat or gain muscle effectively. (Read more on Macros)

I hope this will help you have a better understanding of how to read a nutrition label. Knowing what you are putting into your body is the first step to achieving your fitness goals.

In a later post, I'll help you analyze what to lookout for in the ingredients portion of a label.

-Fazoo Fitness