Understanding a Food Label

Start scrutinising labels, and learn more about what you're eating.

Understanding a food label opens the door to knowing what's really in that product. Ignore the pretty picture and the fancy product-name, and look at the small print. That's where the details are hiding, and it's easy to learn how to interpret them. Armed with these, and other you can start making much healthier choices.
Here's what to look out for, when you're understanding a food label.

• The name of the product.
  This mustn't mislead, so a tomato sauce, for instance, should get most of its flavour from tomatoes. Beware the meaningless verbiage designed to seduce you into buying. Don't be taken in by words like:
  • fresh, pure, natural, farmhouse, lite or light, traditional, premium, finest, best, quality, selected
  
  These words have no real meaning, but are used simply to make the food sound more appealing.
• Ingredients
  All ingredients, including additives, are listed in descending order of weight. Examine this carefully, because it reveals whether a product contains a very high proportion of water, or sugar, for instance, or a surprisingly low proportion of fruit, or meat. This is also where you can check to see whether certain additives, such as those food colours linked with hyperactivity
  are present in the product.
• Meat products
  Look for the percentage of meat – the higher the better. Remember that 'meat' can also include fat, skin, or mechanically retrieved meat.
• Organic
  Organic products have their own labelling rules.
• Use by/best before
  Best before dates are intended as a guide. After the best before date, food might start to lose texture or flavour, but is still safe to eat.
  Use by, is displayed on foods which don't keep well. Don't eat food once the use by date is passed, even if it looks and smells OK.
• Allergy advice Helpful if you need to avoid nuts, gluten etc.
  
• Nutrition information
  Useful, because it means you can make comparisons. May give the calorie-count, plus amounts of saturated and unsaturated fats, sodium and/or salt, protein, carbohydrate, sugar, and fibre. Required reading for healthy eaters.

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