Making sense of food labels

At Sodexo, we believe it is important to understand the jargon on food labels to make an informed choice about what you should be eating. Here are a few pointers to help you understand food labels. 

Fat

• The amount of fat and saturated fat in a product is featured on the food label. But what's high and what's low?
  ~ 20g fat or more per 100g is high, while 3g or less is low
  ~ 5g saturated fat or more per 100g is high, while 1.5g or less is low

• Always read the label and don't fall for marketing tricks. For example, if the label says 'low fat' or 'reduced fat' the product might not necessarily be a healthy choice.

• To claim a product is 'reduced fat' the amount of fat must be at least 25% lower than the standard product. However, these types of products tend to be high in fat in their standard version, so the 'reduced fat' version may still be high in fat.

• Similarly, don't assume products labelled 'light' or 'lite' are a healthy choice. Manufacturers use these terms to give the impression that a food item has fewer calories than a similar product. However, there are no rules to say how many fewer calories a product must be to earn 'light' status. Again, check the label.

• It's worth knowing that 'low fat' or 'reduced fat' products do not necessarily have fewer calories, as the fat is often replaced by other ingredients, such as sugar, which can actually make it higher in calories!

Sugar

• When checking for sugar content on food labels, look for 'carbohydrates (of which sugars)'. As a guide, 12.5g sugars or more per 100g is high, while 5g sugars or less per 100g is low.

• These figures can't tell you how much of the sugars come from milk or fruit and how much comes from added sugars so you should also check the ingredients list.

• All pre-packed foods are labelled with their ingredients listed in descending order of their weight - the product will contain the largest amount of the first listed ingredient. When looking for added sugars, watch out for such as sucrose, glucose, fructose, maltose, hydrolysed starch and invert sugar, corn syrup and honey.

• Some foods you might not expect to have added sugar can contain lots, including tinned spaghetti and baked beans, cereal bars and breakfast cereals.

Salt

• Salt is also known as sodium chloride. It is the sodium which can be bad for your health and is often listed on food labels instead of salt.

• As a guide, 1.5g or more salt per 100g is high, while 0.3g or less salt per 100g is low.

• To work out the salt content when only the sodium content is featured on a food label, simply multiply the sodium content by 2.5.

• For example, a tin of soup containing 640mg of sodium, actually has 1.6g of salt (640mg x 2.5 = 1600mg or 1.6g).