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What Does It All Mean?

By law, most items in the grocery store must have a label with all the nutrition information printed right on it. Be sure to check the foods you eat to make sure you keep to a reduced-calorie diet with no more than 30% calories from fat. Here are some important points to remember when you read nutrition labels:

Serving Size
Servings Per Container
CaloriesCalories from Fat
Total Fat 8%
Total Carbohydrates 3%
Protein
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  1. Serving Size: It's the first line of the label, and the most important, because all the nutrition facts listed are based on it. Be careful, because some packaged foods contain more than 1 serving. So compare the portion you're eating with the serving size and adjust your calories and fat accordingly. "A serving size for this product is 1 package (13 grams)."


  2. Servings per Container: This refers to the number of servings included in the package. "This package contains 6 servings."


  3. Calories and Calories From Fat: The calories listing is the total number of calories you will consume in one serving. "There are 50 calories in this product." (Calories measure the amount of energy supplied from food.) The calories from fat listing reflects the number of fat calories the product provides per serving, not the percentage of calories from fat. "This product has 10 fat calories."


  4. % Daily Value: This will help you see how a food fits into a 2000-calorie reference diet. It tells you how much of a nutrient the food contains. "One package of this product contains 2% of the daily value for grams of fat, which is relatively low."


  5. Daily Values Footnote: This reflects the current nutrition recommendations for both 2000- and 2500-calorie diets. For example, the daily value for fat is 65 grams for 2000 calories and 80 grams for 2500 calories. These examples are probably higher than the target calories and fat-gram daily totals prescribed by your doctor.


  6. Total Fat: This is the amount of fat, in grams, per serving. "This product contains 1 gram of fat." Remember that your diet should contain approximately 30% of calories from fat at each main meal.


  7. Important Nutrients: These include saturated fat, cholesterol, sodium, total carbohydrate and protein. Check this information if your doctor has instructed you to limit any of these.
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