World 6-3
Food Labels
The Fine Print
I try not to stand there for too long in a shop reading the nutritional labels.
Well I didn’t used to anyway – it’s not the most fun way to shop. And people might think I just really love reading food labels for fun.
But it is a good idea to get comfortable with some of that info on the label.
Is ‘per serving’ better to know? Or percentage? Both are handy for different things.
Brand A vs Brand B
Products can look very similar on the shelf. There are only so many shades of red and bottle shapes you can think up for ketchup.
But pick up each sauce and look up “carbohydrates” (sugar comes under the umbrella of ‘carbohydrate’) and you may find a range from ‘normal for tomatoes’ (5%) up to ‘normal for cookies’ (30, 40, 50%).
I mainly read just for headline figures like amount of protein/fat (because I like to eat those) and carbohydrate. Some people also take account of fibre (to get net carbs).
The reason I read for headline carbohydrates – rather than specifically sugar or the type of sugar – is that my BGLs care about carbohydrates in total.
Per Serving is useful after I’ve purchased the item (so I can guess what to inject).
Percentage is useful for comparing 2 items, or for getting an idea of how much of that bacon slice is brown sugar.