Posted on February 20, 2014 by Jenny Cromack

Surely before you eat something you want to know what’s in it – or what benefits you’re getting from eating it. Whilst at Motive8 we advise our clients to stay away from processed foods, labels are on the healthy foods we eat too and we should still look at them. The key to remember is that we read food labels as they are designed to help consumers make informed choices about those foods we eat. But let’s be honest, some labels are colour coded; there are labels on the front of packaging and different labels on the back or side of packaging; some have lots more information than others, and when it comes down to it – do you actually know what you’re looking for and does it matter?

The truth is, if you have no real weight loss or specific fitness/health goals, then in an ideal world, these labels should be simply helping you to choose a more balanced diet. We know that generally speaking, something in Red is bad for you, Orange means don’t do it too often and Green means good.  Surely therefore, something which has a small percentage of fat or salt per serving is a good thing!

But for those who are trying to achieve something specific through their diet, I think it is important to understand certain things that they are being told about their food through their food packaging labels. The “adult guideline daily amount” for example.

GDA = Guideline daily amounts / RI = Reference Intake / DV = Daily Value

In the UK we currently see this displayed as GDA. This will be changing to RI in the near future. These are the guidelines for calories and main nutrients based on an average adult woman of a healthy weight and level of activity. So the percentages you see on the food labels are based on 2000kcals, 90g of Sugar, 70g Fat (20g Saturated) and  6g of Salt. The question is though, what happens if you’re not this ‘average adult woman’….would you still know what percentage of food you should be eating? Below are the full GDA for an average man and woman but it’s worth bearing in mind these may not be appropriate depending on your goals. For example at motive8 we would not recommend our fat loss and body composition clients consume this number of carbohydrates and certainly a higher amount of protein. Maybe just relying on the GDA isn’t the best way to decide if a food is ‘healthy’ or not

 Full GDA Values:

Guideline Daily Amount Values
Typical values	Women	Men	Children (5-10 years)
Calories	2,000 kcal	2,500 kcal	1,800 kcal
Protein	45 g	55 g	24 g
Carbohydrate	230 g	300g	220 g
Sugars	90 g	120 g	85 g
Fat	70 g	95 g	70 g
Saturates	20 g	30 g	20 g
Fibre	24 g	24 g	15 g
Salt	6g	6 g	4g

Low/ Free From / Reduced

I would also suggest that we also need to understand how we can tell whether something really is low fat, low salt or low sugar. This isn’t necessarily shown on the food labels.

The NHS states the following guidelines per 100g of product

	Total Fat	Saturated Fat	Sugars	Salt
High	17.5g	5g	22.5g	1.5g (0.6g sodium)
Low	3g	1.5g	5g	0.3g (0.1g sodium)

So for a product to be considered “Low Fat” it must contain less than 3g of fat per 100g of product.  Keep in mind that your single serving may be more than 100g! So you would need to look at each portion or servings value.

 

Food manufacturers can be very misleading about the labels to entice us into buying a product so it it is really important to understand the nutritional value of the portion size you are going to consume and also to have a good understanding of the the amounts per 100g; without any prior education food labels can be misleading. Obviously everyone has different nutritional requirements, and one argument would be whether anyone is average anymore! Our gender, age, weight and activity levels all affect how much we need to eat.

If you eat a healthy, balanced and ‘clean’ diet (ie nothing processed or in packages) and you cook your food from scratch there is nothing to worry about! But if you’re confused or concerned about what you’re eating, just speak to one of our team – it’s what we’re here for!

KH

http://www.fda.gov/food/ingredientspackaginglabeling/labelingnutrition/ucm274593.htm

http://www.nhs.uk/Livewell/Goodfood/Pages/food-labelling.aspx

http://www.gdalabel.org.uk/gda/gda_values.aspx