Reading a food label properly

Food labelling is regulated in ways that most shoppers do not know, which means the information needed to compare products is present and is not where the eye goes.

The ingredients list

The most informative part.

Ingredients are listed in descending order by weight, which tells you immediately what a product mostly consists of.

Sugar appears under many names — glucose syrup, dextrose, fructose, maltose, molasses, honey, fruit juice concentrate, invert sugar — and splitting sugars across several names moves each further down the list while the total remains high.

Allergens must be emphasised in the list in most jurisdictions, typically in bold, which is a legal requirement rather than a courtesy.

A very long list of ingredients is not inherently bad and does indicate a highly formulated product.

The nutrition panel

Where comparison happens.

Values per 100 grams or 100 millilitres are what allow products to be compared, since per-portion figures use portion sizes chosen by the manufacturer.

Typical reference points used in front-of-pack schemes: a food is high in a nutrient at roughly more than 22.5 grams of total sugars, 5 grams of saturated fat or 1.5 grams of salt per 100 grams, and low at roughly less than 5 grams, 1.5 grams and 0.3 grams respectively.

These vary by scheme and country and are a useful rough guide.

Salt versus sodium: sodium multiplied by 2.5 gives salt, and products labelled in sodium look better than they are.

Fibre is not always mandatory on the panel and is worth looking for where present.

Portion size

The most manipulated element.

Manufacturers choose the portion, and the choice frequently bears little resemblance to how people eat the product.

Which is why a small figure per portion can accompany a product that is unambiguously high in sugar per hundred grams.

Checking the number of portions in a pack against how many you will actually eat is the practical correction.

Claims on the front

Which are regulated and are still marketing.

Nutrition claims such as low fat, reduced sugar, source of fibre and high protein have legal definitions with specific thresholds.

Reduced means reduced relative to a comparable product, which may still be high.

Low fat products frequently contain more sugar to compensate for texture and flavour, and vice versa.

Health claims linking a nutrient to a health effect require authorisation in most jurisdictions and must be based on accepted evidence, which is why the wording is stilted.

Terms with no legal definition in many places — natural, wholesome, artisan, farmhouse, superfood — carry no information at all, and superfood claims are restricted in some jurisdictions precisely because they mean nothing.

Free-from labelling addresses allergens and is not a health claim.

Dates

Where waste originates.

Use-by is a safety instruction and should be observed, particularly for meat, fish, dairy and ready meals.

Best-before is a quality indication, and food is generally safe after it, with deterioration in texture, flavour or nutrient content.

Confusion between the two is a documented and substantial contributor to household food waste, and several retailers have removed best-before dates from fresh produce for this reason.

Once opened, the storage instruction on the pack takes precedence over the printed date.

Unit pricing

The line that saves the most money and that almost nobody reads.

Shelf labels in most jurisdictions must show price per unit — per kilogram, per litre, per hundred grams — which allows genuine comparison between pack sizes and brands.

Larger packs are frequently but not always cheaper per unit, and promotional offers frequently are not.

Comparing unit prices takes seconds and reliably identifies where the money goes.

What labels do not tell you

Worth knowing.

Degree of processing, which is not on the label and which some nutritional frameworks consider important.

Cooking method effects.

Bioavailability of nutrients.

Whether the product is displacing something better.

And whether a fortified product is fortified because it needed to be.

The practical routine

What to actually do in a shop.

Ignore the front of the pack.

Check the first three ingredients.

Check sugar, saturated fat, salt and fibre per hundred grams.

Check the unit price.

And compare two products rather than assessing one in isolation, since the useful question is which is better rather than whether this is good.

General information only, not medical or nutritional advice. Labelling rules vary by country — consult a qualified dietitian about specific dietary requirements.