How to read food labels: 8 tips to make healthy choices

Many families want to make healthy food choices and reading food labels can be a good place to start. But knowing exactly what to look for and which claims to trust can be tricky.

Michealann Rangel, RD, Clinical Dietitian at Children's Health℠, shares some quick and simple tips for how to read food labels and ways to help your family eat more nutritious meals.

"We don’t expect parents to drive themselves crazy, adding up the numbers of calories and grams of protein a child eats each day," Rangel says. "We want to provide some general guidelines and steer them toward building healthy habits, buying fewer processed foods and listening to their fullness and hunger cues."

8 tips for reading food labels

Tip #1: Understand % Daily Value

Percent daily value means the percentage of a nutrient (like fiber or carbohydrates) you need in a day. For example, if a nutrition facts label says the food contains 25% of your daily value of calcium per serving, that's about a quarter of the amount of calcium you need in a day. In general:

• If a food has 5% or less of a nutrient, it is considered low in that nutrient.

• If a food has 20% or more of a nutrient, it's considered high in that nutrient.

"For example, if a food has 4% of your daily value of protein and 40% of your daily value in saturated fat, it would be considered low in protein and high in fat," Rangel says. "So % daily value is a good place to start if you are looking to increase certain nutrients and decrease things like sodium and saturated fats."

Tip #2: Know what nutrients not to miss

To make sure your child is getting enough of the nutrients they need, look for high % daily values of (more than 20%) of the following nutrients on ingredients labels:

• Fiber

• Vitamin D

• Calcium

• Iron

• Potassium

"It's often because kids aren’t eating a ton of fruits and vegetables, or they’re eating white bread instead of whole-grain bread."

Choosing breads and pastas labeled "100% whole grain" or those that have "whole grains" as the first ingredient on the ingredients list can help increase your child’s fiber intake.

Even in sunny Texas, Rangel also sees many kids who are low in Vitamin D. The most common source of Vitamin D is the sun, but you can also get it from eggs, fatty fish like salmon, milk and fortified cereals.

Tip #3: Limit saturated fats, trans fats, added sugars and sodium

Some of the foods to look for lower % daily values include:

• Saturated fats and trans fats, which can raise cholesterol and lead to heart problems.

• Sodium, which can lead to heart and kidney problems. The American Heart Association recommends that kids under 18 eat less than 2300 mg (about one teaspoon).

• Added sugars, which can lead to weight and dental problems. The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends kids eat less than 25 grams per day or 6 teaspoons per day. But on average, kids and teens in America actually consume around 17 teaspoons of added sugars per day according to the CDC.

Tip #4: Check the serving size

The serving size is at the top of the nutrition facts label. And while it's easy to assume that one small package of something is one serving size, sometimes a package includes two or more servings – so the whole package could have two or more times the amount of sugar and salt listed on the ingredients label. For example, one snack-sized bag of chips often contains two servings, but most people eat the whole bag.

Tip #5: Look for a short list of ingredients that you recognize

Another good rule of thumb is to choose products with shorter lists of ingredients that are all ingredients that you’d find in your kitchen. A longer list of ingredients with names you don’t recognize may mean that the product is an ultraprocessed food.

Tip #6: Know which words are regulated by the FDA

Some words on food labels are regulated by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). That means a food has to meet certain criteria to use those words on a label, including:

• Low (such as low sodium, low cholesterol, low fat and low calorie)

• Free (such as fat-free, cholesterol-free, or sugar-free)

• Light/lite (has ⅓ fewer calories and 50 percent less fat than the standard product)

• Excellent source of (This means a food has at least 20% of the daily value of a nutrient, such as “excellent source of fiber”)

• Good source of (This means a food has 10-19% of the daily value of a nutrient, such as “good source of calcium”)

• Reduced (has at least 25% less of something like fat, sodium or sugar than the original product)

"'Reduced' can be tricky. It doesn’t necessarily mean a food is low in something, it just means it has less than the original," Rangel says. "So a packet of ramen noodles might say ‘reduced sodium’ but still have quite a bit of sodium."

Tip #7: And know which words are NOT regulated by the FDA

Many words on food labels can be used without meeting any standards. These labels can make a product sound healthier than it actually is, including:

• Natural

• Heart-healthy

• Clean

• Immune-boosting

• Made with real fruit

• Made with whole grains (does not mean that a food is high in whole grains, just that it has some amount of whole grain).

• Multigrain (means that something is made with more than one type of grain, but it's not necessarily whole or healthy grains).

Tip #8: Keep an eye out for common allergens and cross contamination

The FDA requires that foods that contain the nine major allergens list them on their label. Those foods are:

1. Milk

2. Egg

3. Fish

4. Crustacean shellfish

5. Tree nuts

6. Peanuts

7. Wheat

8. Soybeans

9. Sesame

The label will either list these products on the ingredients label or say "contains [fish, wheat, peanuts, etc.]."

Statements like 'may contain' or 'nut-free' are not regulated by the FDA, so their presence or absence does not guarantee that a food is safe.

A food that doesn't list an allergen on its label may still come into contact with an allergen during cooking or manufacturing, which is called "cross contamination." If you are worried about cross-contamination, consider contacting the manufacturer directly. If they have processes in place to prevent cross-contamination, they are usually happy to share those processes with you. If they are not willing to share specific processes or use generic language such as 'we follow FDA guidelines,' consider avoiding that product because they may not be taking steps to prevent cross-contamination.

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