I am Christel from Diabetes Strong
and this is a quick tutorial on how to read nutrition labels
in this tutorial I’ll also be focusing on how to read
the nutrition labels with carb counting in mind
so carb counting is really important if you, like myself,
live with insulin-dependent diabetes
and dose your insulin based on how many carbs you eat
so this video is great for you if you're learning how to count carbs
or if you just need a refresher
on how to read your nutrition label so let's dive right in, so I’ll be using this low
carb cereal as an example,
so the nutritional label here I’ll be leaving a copy of that up here in the corner
so you can follow along so this nutrition label is just going to be an example
pretty much all the nutritional labels here in the U.S are set up the same but
you might encounter a dual column nutrition label instead
or a single ingredient nutrition label
but the principles are going to be the same first up is serving size,
so here in the U.S, all the nutrition information is based on serving size
and not per 100 grams
like it is in most other countries so it's something to pay attention to
it's important because a product might look to you like it's a single serving
but it might actually be two or even more so always turn the product around look at
the nutrition label and see, is you know if it's a cookie that you pick up for example
is it actually one serving or is it maybe two or more
so if you just want to enjoy one serving
of this cereal you'd have to pour out half a cup or 36 grams of the cereal
so the seven serving size simply just means how much is there in the bag total
so that would be three and a half cups and that's
basically, this is the content of the whole bag
then we have the total amount of calories in a single serving
so if your goal for reading nutrition labels is weight management
the total calories is a good place to start
however, if you're looking to read nutrition labels for understanding carb counting
you want to continue reading and now we're getting to the
good part now we're getting to what those calories actually consists of
so for starters I would suggest that you focus on the three macronutrients
so that would be your fats,
I would look at the saturated fats as well, as well as the total fats
you want to look at your your carbs and not just your carbs but also
your fibers and your added sugars
and then finally you want to look at your proteins
if you're looking to reduce your sodium that is also a good one to look at but
let's break it down using this as an example
so this product has five grams of fat per serving
and very very limited amount of saturated fat, saturated fat are the ones the kind of
fats that are solid at room temperatures and they usually predominantly
comes from animal products so generally saturated fat has been considered
as being one of the worst offenders when it comes to heart issues
and artery-clogging, however some saturated fats
from non-animal products like
we see up here do not have these issues and are generally considered healthy
so the rule of thumb is to go for saturated fats from
that comes from nuts from fish and from plants
and you should generally be okay
and then we have the carbohydrates or the carbs
so carbs and not just carbs when it comes to insulin dosing
so don't stop at total carbs
so this product has 14 grams of carbs total but 9 grams of that
is actually fibers and there are no added sugars
fiber, for the most part, is one of those things, that doesn't really get digested
so in reality for most people, it won't impact blood sugars
so if you take the total carbs which is the 14 grams
and then you take the 9 grams of fiber
and subtract the 9 grams of fiber you end up with a net carb count of only 5 grams
a lot of people find that they actually need to dose for the net carbs
versus the total carbs
if you want to dose your insulin based on the net carbs rather than total carbs
there's one more thing to think about
so this product does not have any sugar alcohols
but if it did I would be subtracting 50 percent of the sugar alcohol content
from my total carbs to get to the net carbs
so let's imagine that this product had I don't know 2 sugar alcohols,
2 grams of sugar alcohols, okay that means 50 percent of that that's 1
I would also subtract that to get to my net carb
so we have the 14 minus the 9 and then minus the 1,
that means that the total net carb count for this product would only be 4 grams
and then we have the total protein content up here
so generally I tend to choose products that are
high in protein and with 11 grams this product is considered high in protein
and this is all plant-based protein now we're done with the macronutrients
now let's move down to the micronutrients
so that would be your mineral and your vitamins
so say for example you've been told to pay attention to potassium
then you want to definitely check out this part of the label
and finally, let's check out the percentages
that you see over here on the right side of the label
and those are the percentage daily value
on some labels it might just say percentage sign DV
so on each line here in the label you'll see a percentage daily value listed
so the percentage daily value is based on the FDA guidelines
on daily calorie consumption and because they just have to create a baseline
they base that on a 2 000 calorie daily diet
a percentage of 5 or lower of any of the given nutritions is considered low,
whereas a percentage of 20 daily value or higher is considered high
the main benefit in my opinion about
looking at the percentage daily value is that especially if you buy
packaged goods, kind of like this this product,
is a lot of them are really high in sodium
so if you predominantly are eating packaged food
you might be getting a lot of sodium from your food
and like packaged bread for example can have up to 10 percent of daily value
so if you look at this product what you'll see is that the saturated fat, the sodium,
the carbs, the calcium, and the potassium is considered low
because it's 5 percent or lower
whereas the fat, the fiber, the protein, and the iron is all considered high
the final thing I look at is the actual ingredient list
so you should be getting all the information that you need
from the actual numbers when it comes to managing your blood sugars
or anything else but I do like to look at the ingredient list
as you can give a little bit more color to what's actually in the product
this might be the last part of the nutritional label that I read but if
you live with a food intolerance or a food allergy this is probably the place to start
the list of ingredients, it doesn't just tell you what's in the product
but also how much
because all of the things as they're listed they're listed by weight
so what you see first is what you'll find the most of in the product
so for example let's say that you go to the supermarket and you pick out a yogurt,
so dairy-based yogurt, the first ingredient should probably be a dairy product so if
it's something else you might want to put that yogurt back on the shelf
as you can see in this list of ingredients this product is all plant-based
and it's sweetened with Stevia and Monk fruit
that combined with the high amount of fiber
and the no sugar added indicates that this is a low glycemic food
and I can confirm that, I really enjoy eating this,
and it's fairly soft on the blood sugars
I hope you found this video informative
and hopefully it can help you sharpen your carb counting game
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thank you so much for watching