The Art of Reading a Food Label:
Knowing What to Look For
How to know what to look for: In order to know what information is valuable, insignificant and distorted, you must first gain an understanding of what food groups you need to consume, how much of that food group you need to consume, and how much food a serving consists of. Luckily, the government created an extremely useful tool for tasks such as these, which is called the Food Guide Pyramid.
The US Department of Agriculture created the Food Guide Pyramid to provide Americans with a dietary guide in order to promote healthy eating habits and spread awareness amongst adults, educators, and children about what a nutritious diet should consist of. The US Department of Agriculture states that their nutritional goal for the pyramid was to promote "a diet that is adequate in protein, vitamins, minerals, and dietary fiber, without excessive amounts of calories, fat, saturated fat, cholesterol, sodium, added sugars, and alcohol." By going to the website of the US Department of Agriculture , there are detailed tables explaining what makes up a serving of each good. However, the part that often tricks people when determining what a serving is, is the difference in unit that the Food Pyramid uses versus many food labels. This is where basic math skills must be utilized or else an individual will end up consuming portions of food that do not stay true to the Food Guide Pyramid. In all types of math, the most critical information one needs is the unit of measurement. For example, if an architect writes down the measurements of a room for his co-worker, but forgets to write down 'feet' after the numbers, the co-worker is then at serious risk of buying the wrong amount of supplies for that room if he or she assumes the unit of measure was anything other than feet.
In order to read a food label properly, one must not only know what to look for, but also must know how to interpret the data they are reading.
Therefore, the key to properly reading a food label is first, knowing what percentage each food group accounts for in a day of consumption, and second, always remembering to keep a close eye on the unit of measure so that companies do not succeed in tricking you into thinking there is more or less of a certain ingredient in their product.