If you're making the switch to healthier eating, reading labels is a great way to start. In fact, you can always spot the healthy shoppers in the grocery store. They're the ones studying cans and the sides of boxes. There is an increasing amount of information on food labels to help you choose healthier products. If you're just starting to read labels, visit the store a few times when you aren't rushed so you have time to examine them. Once you get the hang of it, you'll feel more confident in identifying the healthier choices. Read on for a few helpful hints on how to decipher food labels.





The nutrition facts table includes calories and 13 nutrients: fat, saturated fat, trans fat, cholesterol, sodium, carbohydrate, fibre, sugars, protein, vitamin A, vitamin C, calcium and iron. You can use the nutrition facts to compare products easily. It will help you determine the nutritional value of foods, better manage special diets, and increase or decrease your intake of a particular nutrient.

All the information in the nutrition facts table is based on a specific amount of food. Be sure to compare this amount to the amount you eat. When you read the nutrition facts look at the specific amount of food listed and compare it to how much you actually eat. The specific amount may be indicated by a phrase such as: a slice, one egg, two cookies, followed by the metric measurement or familiar household units such as mL, cups, tablespoons, or a fraction or unit of food.

Use the % daily value to see if a food has a little or a lot of a nutrient. The % Daily Value is a benchmark for evaluating the nutrient content of foods quickly and easily based on recommendations for a healthy diet and is used to determine the amount of a nutrient in a specific amount of food. Use the % Daily Value to make food comparisons. The % daily value provides a quick overview of the nutrient profile of the food, allowing product comparisons based on more than one nutrient as it puts nutrients on the same scale (0% - 100%).

Use nutrition claims to make informed food choices. The Government has rules in place that must be met before a nutrition claim can be made on a label or advertisement. The rules for nutrition claims apply to all foods, pre-packaged and not pre-packaged, no matter where they are sold. A manufacturer can choose whether or not to include nutrition claims on the label or in the advertisement of a food. Many products will have nutrition claims as these claims highlight a feature of interest to consumers.



Manufacturers of food can highlight a product's nutrition features using claims such as "Source of fibre". "Source of fibre" means the food contains at least 2 grams of dietary fibre in the amount of food specified in the nutrition facts table.

"Low" is always associated with a very small amount. "Low fat" means that the food contains no more than 3 grams of fat in the amount of food specified in the nutrition facts table. In a healthy diet, the recommended range for fat intake is approximately one third of total calories.

The claim "Cholesterol-free" means that the product has a negligible amount (less than 2 mg of cholesterol in the amount of food specified in the Nutrition Facts table) and it is also low in saturated fat and trans fat.

"Free" is an amount of a nutrient so small that health experts consider it nutritionally insignificant. A "sodium-free" claim means the amount of food specified in the nutrition facts table contains less than 5 mg of sodium.

"Reduced in Calories" has at least 25% less energy (Calories) than the food it is being compared to.

When referring to a nutritional characteristic of a product, "light" is allowed only on foods that are either "reduced in fat" or "reduced in energy" (Calories). "Light" can also be used to describe sensory characteristics of a food, provided that the characteristic is clearly identified with the claim (e.g., light tasting, light colored).

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