Month: April 2011

All packaged food items have nutrition labels on it These nutrition labels carry information regarding the nutritious constituents in the food packaged in them. We eat food. But not all of the food is useful to the body. The chemicals which are not useful to our body are thrown away as the human excreta. What we eat is converted in to the useful chemicals by the digestive juices produced in the body. These digestive juices can react on certain types of foods only. Anything that can not react with the digestive juices is thrown away as the waste by the body. The nutrition labels tell us exactly useful
part in the packaged food..
Our body requires lots of useful foods to keep our body healthy. Thus the nutrition labels help us maintain our health. Now let us consider the items published on the nutrition labels and try to understand them.
Nutrients are the foods that are essential for body building. Vitamins are required by our body. Their deficiency can cause lot many health problems. Thus we must have certain amount of vitamins in our daily food intake. The nutrition labels have clear cut information about available vitamins printed on them.
Some nutrients printed on nutrition labels are measured in grams and are denoted by g.
Some nutrients info is given in milligrams on the nutrition labels Some information is given as percentage, on the nutrition labels.
The first important info is servings contained in the pack. You can decide how many individual servings you will require. The second point is amount per serving.
The nutrition labels also tell you about the serving size. It can be two cookies for example. It can be a cup of cereal. Thus you get an idea about the serving size in ordinary measuring units. The nutrition labels make it very easy for you to decide whether consume one cookie or two.
The nutrition labels give you info about the calories present in one serving. The calories can come from the fats or they may come from other sources like proteins. It is absolutely necessary to know amount of calories coming from fats. This is something that every weight conscious weight watcher has to watch. This calorie info is given on the left side of the nutrition labels.
Percent daily value is another important info on the nutrition labels. Suppose that an adult person needs 2000 calories per day. If the serving is giving 200 calories of energy per serving, then it will be noted as 10 % of your daily need. The amount of the sodium, potassium or minerals and vitamins remain the same. They do not change as per calories.
Total fat is another valuable info on the nutrition labels. Fat can come from different sources. Their individual info is also given along with the total fats. This is vital as everybody needs to monitor his fat intake closely to keep himself healthy.