Hi, my name is Blake Kuntz, I'm a dietetic graduate student with

Eastern Illinois University.

Today I'm going to talk to you about how to read

a nutrition facts label.

The purpose of my presentation is to clarify the confusion

surrounding the nutrition facts label.

The topic is important because a lot of people have trouble

reading it properly, and also because reading labels

properly will help you to identify your dietary needs

and to manage your weight.

So looking at this label, a key with reading nutrition facts

labels is to always read them from the top.

So if you look at this, it says that this food has a serving

size of one cup and there are two servings per container.

So it has 250 calories, 110 of which come from fat, so that's

over 40%, because you divide 110 by 250.

Then if you look on the right hand side, there is the

percent daily values which are percentages that are based

on your needs for a 2000-calorie diet.

So for example, this food has 12 grams of fat, which is

18% of your daily value of 65 grams.

Then if you'll notice, trans fat does not have a daily value

because this is not an essential nutrient, it's something

that you should limit in your diet as much as possible.

Cholesterol, there is 10% of your daily value,

which is 30 milligrams.

For carbohydrates, there are 4 calories

per gram of carbohydrates.

So in order to figure out the percent calories from

carbohydrates you take 31 grams times 4, which is 124 calories,

then you divide 124 by 250.

So by doing that calculation you find out that almost 50% of

your calories in this food are from carbohydrates, which is

within the recommendations.

Also, if you notice, sodium is 20% of your

daily value per serving.

Twenty percent is considered high while

5% is considered low.

This food has less than 1/2 gram of fiber.

They can list it on the label as zero if it has

less than 1/2 a gram.

Also, if you notice there is 5 grams of sugar; there are

4 grams of sugar in 1 teaspoon, so this food

has 1 1/4 teaspoons of sugar.

There are 5 grams of protein.

There are 4 calories in 1 gram of protein, so 20 of your

calories are coming from protein, which is less than

10%, so this is a low-protein food.

If you look at the bottom, its low in vitamin A,

vitamin C, and iron, but it's high in calcium.

Those nutrients are listed on the label because

they are important to avoid deficiencies.

So now, I'm going to show you some food examples

where reading, not reading a nutritional label properly

could cause problems.

So one example would be this chocolate bar has three servings

which I know a lot of people would probably just eat the

whole bar, and that would have 39 grams of fat.

Another example is this bottle of Pepsi.

A serving is 8 ounces, this bottle is 20 ounces, so there's

2 1/2 servings, and it has 250 calories for the whole bottle

which is all pretty much coming from sugar.

Another interesting one is Gatorade.

I know a lot of people drink these for snacks and there's

kind of a perception that they're a lot healthier than

soda, but if you don't use them after excercising,

you're actually getting as many calories as a soda.

This bottle has 160 calories.

So a key for nutrition labels is to watch the portion sizes,

so one suggestion I would have for people that have problems

with over-indulging is to buy the snack packs.

Each one of these snack packs only has 100 calories,

so that's a good option for people.

Then another example, just to show how small the serving sizes

can be on the labels, Kashi cereal, which is a very

nutritious cereal, is high in fiber and low in sugar.

But one serving is only 3/4 of a cup, and I brought that in,

so it barely even fills the bowl.

So most people would probably eat two to three times as much.

So that's my third example.

So to summarize, it's important to read nutrition labels

carefully and pay attention to serving sizes.

It's important to remember that you can enjoy a

variety of foods.

The key is to moderate but not eliminate.

I also have some additional resources that

you can check out.

The first website is from the Center for Food Safety

and Applied Nutrition.

The Food and Drug Administration tells people how to read a

nutrition facts label.

My second resource is nutrition.gov.

It allows people to read about the dietary

guidelines for Americans.

My final resource is from mypyramid.gov, which allows

people to figure out their calorie needs, because the

percent daily values, as I was saying, are based on a

2000-calorie diet, but your calorie needs may be higher

or lower than that depending on what they are.

So, that concludes my presentation.