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Reading food labels, what's good for you?

Ok time to lean how to read labels!

Serving size: This is a pre assumed serving size for you, it very well might be a TINY portion of the packet. Before you do anything look at the total weight or number of items in the packet and work out via the 100g column or the pre assumed serving column; what your serving size is in calories, protein, carbs, sugars, starches and fats. If the packet has 8 servings per packet you know to multiply the serving nutritional information by 8 if you're going to scoff the whole thing. Similarly, if you're going to only eat half the recommended portion, half it! Simple now isn't it?

Calories: Calories are a way to describe how much energy you gain from eating the food. This is a combination of protein calories, carbohydrate calories, fat calories and sometimes fiber calories are included. (If this is confusing, go back to the "Macro-Nutrients" tab on the nutrition page) They are a guideline to see how suitable a food is. However, calories from proteins, carbs, fats and fibers do different things which is why you can't look at a cake and say, "oh it's only 100 calories!" because 90% of those calories come from carbs, if they came from protein, it would be a different story, it'd be a good food choice. Calories are guidelines, not excuses to have small portions of terrible food!

Protein: Self explanatory, protein that comes from meat, fish and protein powders will be very high quality complete proteins. Protein from beans will be a great source too with similar protein quality to meats while just trailing behind. Nuts and grains and other sources including protein will be incomplete, so eat them with a complete protein to get the best effect from your food.

Carbohydrates: Contrary to popular believe, fat doesn't make you fat, carbs make you fat. With that in mind, you'll see Carbohydrates, sugars and starches. Basically a higher starch food, or a high sugar food is more likely to get you fat quicker! Take 2 foods with 50g of carbs. One has 30g of sugar and one has 2g of sugar, they both have 50g of carbs but the quality of those carbs is different. The DIGESTION rate is SLOWER with less sugar. Starches can be slow or fast digesting which is why you do to my food database! Make sure the food has 10% sugar MAXIMUM! Now that being said, vegetables and fruits have high sugar ratios BUT vegetables are the exception, the sugars in veg will not make one bit of difference! In the fuit it will make almost no difference (Apart from dried fruit, fruit juice, canned fruit, fruit in syrup and fruit flavours which are NOT good sources of fruit). Eat as much veg as you like, have fruit but moderate how much and go for brown colored grains!

Fats: You'll see saturated, mono-unsaturated, poly-unsaturated and even sometimes omega-III.
Saturated fats are labeled "bad fats" but you need them! They get a bad rap because people overeat on them, making them have this big bad wolf reputation. Get a moderate amount of saturated fats like from avacardo or red meats just don't eat more than one portion a day. Don't avoid them they're awesome! The mono and poly unsaturated fats are the ones you want to consume the most of because these are the "healthy" and "friendly" fats. Good for weight loss, good for health, overall awesome fats. Omega-III's .....I shouldn't have to tell you these are very good for you....
Rule of thumb: For every 100 calories, no more than 2g of fat UNLESS you're using it as a fat source such as red meat, oily fishes ect

Fiber: The more fiber the better! Just be warned, it'll make you fat all day if you're taking in more than you're used to. Fiber is a good thing to have it'll make bowel movements pass easier and more regular.
 

Reading food labels

Micro-nutrients

Vitamins and minerals..... the more the better. Calcium, iron, vitamin c, thiamin, riboflavin, managese, vitamin K....
YOU GET THE IDEA!

 

Cholesterol

My knowledge is very limited in this field. There are 2 types of cholesterol so don't be put off is the number is a little high. Familiarize yourself with what sources of good and bad are, then you can worry about it. Only thing I'd say is no more than 1 egg yolk per meal if you make an omelet or scrambled egg or something.

Sodium

Sodium will NOT make you gain weight. That being said don't eat loads of sodium rich foods. It'll make you retain more water making you look like you gained weight either discouraging you or confusing the scales.
Apparently 2400mg is the RDA so maximum of 400mg per meal if you have 6 meals a day. So on and so forth. ​

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