Are you confused on how to read a nutrition label or how to understand exactly what everything
means.
Make sure to watch this video so that you can fully understand exactly how to read a
nutrition label and to comprehend what everything on it actually means and how it can affect
you specifically.
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Now we see nutrition labels all the time.
Every time that we pick up food, whole food, we go to the grocery store, any of this, we
see nutrition labels all the time, but the question is, do you really pay attention to
them and do you know what everything on it means?
By the end of this video, you're going to understand what every item on a nutritional
facts label means and how it can help you make better food choices.
All right, so let's just go ahead and dive right into it and let's start right up at
the top.
All right, so in the last couple of years there's been a new food label that has been
changed.
Most of the food that you purchase out there should be changed over at this point.
There might be some that's a little lagging behind, but most should be on the new food
label where they've made a few small changes.
So going over this new one, we're going to start at the top where it talks about the
servings, which in my opinion is probably one of the most important aspects.
You need to be able to understand what is in a serving each serving and how many servings
there are in the container or whatever it is that you're purchasing.
The servings is going to be very important.
It's going to list out specifically how many servings there are.
So in this one specifically, it shows that we have eight total servings.
So in this container, in this box of food that you're purchasing, it has eight total
servings in the entire thing.
And it's breaking the nutritional facts down by serving and it's telling you exactly how
much is in each serving.
So they have narrowed the serving down to two thirds of a cup or 55 grams, which means
whenever you weigh, if you weigh and measure it, which I recommend that you are doing with
your food, but if you weigh and measure it, you know that two thirds of a cup is what's
going to equate to the amount that's in there or 55 grams in weight.
If you wanted to put it on a food scale, you would know that it's exactly 55 grams if you
want it to be a little bit more exact than two thirds of a cup.
So from there, if we start moving on down, you can see the total amount of calories.
You can see here that per serving there are 230 calories in each serving.
So that means for every two thirds of a cup that you have or every 55 grams in total weight
that you eat, you are getting 230 calories from that.
Now on the old label, they used to have what was called calories from fat.
And essentially what that would do is tell you that this many calories out of the total
amount of calories, so out of the 230 calories that you're getting per serving this many
calories is what was coming from fat.
Now thankfully on the new labels they have eliminated that.
I am curious, let me know below in the comments, did you ever look at calories from fat?
Did you ever pay attention to it?
I know that that's something that I completely glossed over all the time when I was looking
at it.
I'm very, very glad that they actually eliminated that on the new labels.
So a lot of things that you're looking at now, you may not see the calories from fat
on there anymore.
Next on the line we started getting into total fat on this item you can see that there are
eight grams of total fat per serving.
So again, for every two thirds of a or 55 grams in weight, you are getting eight grams
of fat.
And then it starts to break it down from there.
What is that fat comprised of so you can start to look and see that it's got saturated fat
listed and it also has trans fat listed.
This item specifically has one gram of fat that is a saturated fat and that it contains
zero grams of fat from Trans Fat.
Now if you're not familiar with what trans fats are, this is a fat that you definitely
want to avoid at all costs.
Thankfully they are not really using trans fats near as often as they were before as
they realized that there's pretty much all negative side effects, nothing upside to you
having trans fat, but they are required to list that in there.
So if you look at it, you can see that it's got eight grams of total fat, but you can
only see that one gram of fat is listed on what type, which means that if you take eight
grams minus one, there's seven grams of fat leftover.
We know that those seven grams are coming from unsaturated fats.
Now in some labels you'll see these listed in some labels.
You will not, it just kinda depends on the manufacturer and this label it is not listed.
So we know that there are seven grams of fat that are coming from either polyunsaturated
or mono and saturated fats specifically.
That's where the rest of the fats are.
The seven plus the one equals the eight grams of total fat.
Next thing on the list is cholesterol.
You can see this item specifically says zero amount, 0% zero milligrams.
It does not contain any cholesterol in the food.
This is something that honestly based on the research you don't really need to pay a lot
of attention to.
The amount of cholesterol that you get from food has very little effect on the amount
of blood cholesterol you get whenever you go see the doctor and you have your, your
lipids tested it as a very, very minute effect.
You know, you might pay attention to it, but for the most part I wouldn't worry too much
about the amount of cholesterol that you're actually getting from food.
Next up we've got sodium.
Sodium is listing out in milligrams how much sodium you are getting from this specific
item.
Now, if you were getting things that are pre-made or in a box or that have to be preserved,
you're typically gonna see higher levels of sodium than you would from some sort of a
natural or whole foods like fruits, vegetables, anything like that, meat.
But most foods out there are going to contain a little bit of sodium.
Some are not going to have any, it just kind of depends on each individual item, but something
to pay attention to so that you can track your sodium intake.
From there we go into the total carbohydrates.
So the first thing listed is all the carbs that's in there.
This has 37 grams of total carbs.
So what comes from sugar will comes from fiber, will comes from added sugar, anything at all,
37 grams of carbohydrates as the total amount of carbs that's in this per serving.
Now on the new label, they will have it broke down from there into how much of that comes
from fiber, how much of that comes from sugar and how much comes from added sugar, so sugar
that the manufacturer has added on top of the sugar that it already contains.
Here you can see that it has four grams of total fiber.
Sometimes it will break down what source of fiber that is.
If it's a soluble fiber or if it's an insoluble fiber.
Sometimes it will not break down at, again, this is one of those where it depends on the
nutrition label that you're looking at and the manufacturer and this one it does not
break it down so you only know that it has four grams of the two types of fiber you have
soluble and insoluble.
Soluble is going to come from things like oats and brand nuts, seeds, lentils, beans
and some fruits and vegetables.
Then you have your insoluble, which is mostly going to be coming from vegetables and whole
grains.
Then on down the list you still look at sugar and you can see that it has 12 grams of total
sugar and then this has 10 grams of added sugar, meaning that the manufacturer added
10 grams more sugar on top of what was already in the product.
Then as we go down towards the bottom of the list, we finish off with protein, which this
specifically has three grams of protein per serving.
Now there is an easier way if you are trying to track your calories or track your micronutrients
or macronutrients specifically, which is going to be like fats, carbs and proteins.
If you're trying to track any of these or track calories there's an easier way than
trying to subtract and add and do all this.
Thankfully we have apps out there that will do all these things for us.
If you are interested, I've actually got a video that I will link down below in the description.
You can click on that video and it will take you right to it and it'll explain exactly
how you track all of your calories, how to track your macronutrients using an app specifically.
If that's something that you're interested in doing.
As we keep going down, you can start to see that we have got a few vitamins and minerals
listed.
Unfortunately manufacturers are only required to list four of all of the vitamins and minerals.
The rest of them, they are not required to list.
Some might list more, some may not.
It just kind of depends again on the manufacturer, but as of now they're only required to list
four.
They are required to list the vitamin D, calcium, iron and potassium.
They're supposed to put the amount in weight of each one of them and also the percentage
of daily value, which I'll explain here in just a moment now as far as knowing what other
vitamins and minerals may be in your food.
I've got another video that I will link to just for you guys that teaches you how to
use the same apps to track your micronutrients or your total vitamin and mineral intake because
unfortunately the majority of the foods out there do not list all the vitamins and minerals
that they actually contain.
And there is an easy way to do this.
So I'll link below down in the comments if you want to watch that video on exactly how
to track that stuff and pay attention to it.
So let's talk a little bit about the percentage of a daily value.
Essentially what they are doing here is they are assuming that a, you are eating a 2000
calorie per day diet.
Now, obviously that's not typical.
Some people will eat more, some people eat less.
It depends on the individual, their goals, so on and so forth.
But they are assuming that you are eating 2000 calories a day and what they are doing
is they are giving you your percentages of what's in each serving on what they think
is a minimum that you need to get.
Now granted, this is based off the government's recommendations.
You may agree with them, you may not, it depends on what your views are, but this just kind
of gives you an idea of per serving, you're getting this much protein percentage wise
of what the government thinks that you need to get on a daily basis.
If you're eating a 2000 calorie diet, and I do want to go over one more thing, and this
isn't necessarily on the nutritional facts, but directly below it you should see all the
ingredients and it should have everything listed out.
What are all the ingredients in it.
One of the things that I want you to know if you weren't already aware is that there
is a specific order to the ingredients.
The first ingredient listed has the most amount of weight in that product.
So the very first thing that's listed in anything you get, that's the biggest ingredient in
that specific product.
And then it works its way down to all the way to the bottom.
And when you look at the bottom, that is what is the least in there.
So as you're starting to get an idea of what's in it, you can see what's making up the majority
by weight of what you're actually eating, which is kind of a neat thing to know.
And that's it.
So now you guys know how to read and understand a food label and a nutritional facts label
to make better choices.
But then how do you really put this into action?
What about actually creating a meal plan based on what you need?
So what I've done is I've put together a 28 day fat loss meal plan just for you guys.
I'm going to give away for free.
I put the link in the description below and this is something that you can use that'll
kind of help kickstart you, get you going and moving in the right direction.
If your goal is fat loss.
Also, if you're looking to join a community of people that are looking to be healthier,
I have a Facebook group just for you.
So Dustin Williams, free fat loss and nutrition advice.
It's a free Facebook group.
I'll put the link down below.
You can click and request to join.
We talk about health, nutrition, little tips and tricks that you can do.
I would love it if you guys would join and be a part of our community and as always,
if you enjoy this video, I would really appreciate it if you would smash that light button and
subscribe to the channel, share the video, and also just for my personal benefit, if
you'll comment below with helpful, just letting me know if this information actually helps
you out, I would greatly appreciate it.
But until next time, I'll see you in the next video.