This document provides an overview of how to read and understand food labels. It explains the key information found on labels such as serving size, calories per serving, total fat and fat percentages. It recommends focusing on calories, fat content and fat percentages as important metrics when evaluating foods. The document also provides guidance on daily calorie and fat intake amounts for maintaining a healthy diet and losing weight.

1. Lesson One: Food Labels
 Lorna Stremcha
 Excerpts from Lose the Baggage,
Lose the Weight
 www.losethebaggage-losetheweight.
com

2. Food Labels

3. What the food label tells you
 serving size
 familiar units like a cup(s) or a count
and are followed by the metric unit in
grams.
 size and how many servings are in a
package, container, or item

4. Breaking the label down
In this example, one
serving size prepared is
1 cup, which is equal to
228 grams and 250
calories.

5. Amount of calories per
serving
 tells you how much energy you are
getting by eating one serving of the
product

6. Serving Per Container
In this example, one
serving equals 250 calories.

7. Use these guidelines when
you are shopping
 Low caloric: 40 calories
 Moderate: 100 calories
 High caloric: >= 400 calories

8. High Fat Matters
 High fat servings can halt weight loss
 increase the risk of obesity increase
the risk of cardiovascular disease and
other health issues

9. More about fat per serving
 No more than 35 percent of your daily
caloric intake should be from fat.
 If you are trying to lose weight, eat
no more than 20 percent.

10. Fat per serving
 To find the percentage of fat per
serving, divide the calories from fat
by 100.

11. Stop the confusion
 Do not confuse the calories from fat
number with the percentage, which is
discussed next.
 Aim for products that include no more
than 20–35 percent of fat, and
preferably of unsaturated fat.

12. % Daily Value (%DV)
There is a recommended daily
amount for each nutrient. The
percentage shown represents how
well the product meets that
recommended amount (based on a
2000-calorie diet).

13. “less than” & “at least”
Some nutrients are
labeled to eat “less than”
and the other two, total
carbohydrates and fiber,
are suggesting you eat “at
least” that amount daily.

14. Simply Put
 read food labels of foods
 pay close attention to the amount of
calories per serving as well as the fat
content

15. The End of Label Lesson
 Lesson Two coming soon