Learn How to read Nutrition Fact Labels

Learn to read Nutrition Facts Labels is important in making healthy decisions when you shop for foods. In the prevention of hypertension,this can be your reference for not choosing food high in sodium. Even the food product is high in sodium; you still can consume it by adjusting the serving size according to the food label.

How to read Nutrition Facts Labels in most Malaysia’s food product?

1.   When reading Nutrition Facts Label, the first thing you look is the serving size and the number of servings. For example, in the above product, the number of serving is 1 with each serving size of 250 ml. The size of the serving influences the number of calories and total nutrient intake. So it is important to read it, especially how many servings there are in the food package. By then, determine the portion that you are going to consume.
2. Total energy in kcal give you the idea of how much energy would you get from this product. This is helping you to control you calorie intake within your recommended total energy intake per day. In other word, by concerning about the calorie intake, this will help you to manage your as well. In this example, there are 195 kcal per serving, and 78 kcal per 100 ml. Information on per 100 ml is given for consumer to compare the nutrient with other food product.

General Guide to Calories (based on 2000 calorie diet)

·         40 kcal is low

·         100 kcal is moderate

·         400 kcal ore more is high

    3.   The nutrient, how much?

Macronutrient i.e carbohydrate, fat and protein are listed on top while micronutrient i.e     vitamin and minerals are listed below. Take these nutrients according to Recommended Nutrient Intake (RNI) Malaysia. Carbohydrate is recommended to be taken in 50-60% of total energy; fat in 25-30%; protein in 15-20%.

Another Example of Nutrition Facts Label which usually found in those imported food and also Malaysia product

Serving Information 

In this example, the serving size of half cup (120 ml) condensed soup is from the can; not after mixing with water. Always look here to see if the serving size should be counted before the preparation and this is very important and is good to follow the serving size to manage your weight.

Calories, Fat, Carbohydrates, and Protein

These nutrients information give you the idea of how much of these nutrients and how much should you take to avoid overeating. Daily Value percentages are based on the United State Department of Agriculture (USDA)‘s suggestions that your diet is distributed in a way of 50% carbohydrate, 30% fats, and 20% protein. This is only suggestion, you may calculate by yourself according to your diet.

You can see that Sodium is located on the top instead of below with other vitamins and mineral. This is because sodium is known to be linked to hypertension and since many people tends to consume too much sodium in daily diet; therefore the sodium information is displayed on top to attract the attention of consumer. Sodium content in this example is 890 mg per serving which is considered high as the recommendation nutrient intake for sodium is just 2000 mg per day. Which mean, if you finish the whole can, you will already have enough intake of sodium.

For the fat, we shall concern on the amount of saturated fat and trans fat where these two type of fat is “bad” fat.

Vitamins and Minerals

This section shows the amount of nutrient in the particular product.

Suggested Daily Requirements

Displayed in the bottom portion of the label and may not present on smaller item. It is a reminder or also a helper for consumer to choose and prepare food.

RNI Malaysia

Front-of-pack (FOP)

This is the recent and controversial developments in nutrition labelling in these recent years. We could find FOP in some products in Malaysia’s market. This is an at-a-glance label that tells you the amount of energy (expressed in kcal) a particular food.

This development is done since various studies have reported that consumers kind of neglect the use of nutrition facts label on the back of the product when purchasing. Reasons that have been given of not doing so are lack of time, difficulty in understanding the information, and not knowing how to translate such information into actual food choices.

Therefore, FOP is proposed and used where its formats include simplified logos or symbols such as ticks and smiley faces. This provides a simple information of the food products and also attract the attention of consumers. In Malaysia, FOP are normally provide the amount of energy.