Nutrition label which is part of food labels on prepackaged foods provides description of the nutritional information or nutritional properties of food for consumers. We can learn about the energy content of food from this, as well as the content of its main nutrients, like protein, fat, carbohydrate and sodium.
According to our pervious findings of a survey on snack foods preferred by secondary students, it shows that potato chips are the most popular snack foods. They are loved by children and adults due to their wide range of flavours. Now let’s take the nutrition label of a certain brand of potato chips as an example to explain how to read it. This is a nutrition label on a family-size bag of potato chips, with a net weight in 121 grams. It is categorised as a high-calorie and high-sodium snack food owing to its processing method and the amount of seasoning. Here, we use the nutrition label to explain why potato chips are considerably high in sodium and calorie content.
Before calculation, we have to find out the serving size which is given on the label. It refers to the amount of food customarily eaten by a consumer per portion. On this nutrition label, the serving size is 30 grams and the bag of potato chips is 121 grams in total. If we divide the net weight by serving size, we get around four. So, this bag of potato chips has four servings and the nutrition content of each serving is listed under “Per Serving” on the right. The nutritional information listed under “Per 100 grams” on the left is based on an amount of 100 grams of the potato chips.
An adult requires about 2,000 kilocalories per day and the sodium intake should limit to less than 2,000 mg a day. When we use the Nutrient Reference Values (NRVs) as a basis for calculating the energy and sodium content in one serving (30 grams) of the potato chips, it shows that the amount of kilocalories in one serving contributes to 8.2% of total daily calorie need of an adult, and its sodium content is about 8% of the recommended amount of daily sodium intake. If we eat a whole bag of the chips, it will contribute to 24.6% of our total daily calorie need and 24% of the recommended daily sodium intake. Since we usually have three meals a day, plus other snacks and drinks in between meals, eating too much potato chips may easily exceed the daily recommended nutrition values for a healthy diet. Thus, before consuming any pre-packaged food products, we should take a look at their nutrition labels to figure out how much of that food we ought to eat. It is better to eat less and taste more. For choosing potato chips, there are healthier options other than the ones prepared by traditional process of deep-frying and rich-seasoning, like potato chips and vegetable crisps that are non-fried, non-seasoned, low in sodium and fat. All information can be found on the food packaging and food labels.
Food labels on pre-packaged foods carry information, including the name of food product, its net weight, ingredient composition, shelf life, country of origin, name and address of its importer. The majority of these food also have nutrition label to inform consumers. It is always good to develop a habit of reading food labels to understand what we put into our stomach!
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