Understanding Food Labels

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Understanding Food Labels SCI/241 August 30, 2013 E. Hartman Before taking this class and watching and reading the materials I had never heard of the 5/20 rule. It seems like it would be very hard to understand and when first hearing about it I thought it was some kind of math problem that I would have to work out, but overall it is pretty simple to understand. The 5/20 rule is basically if something is listed on the nutrition label as having 5% or lower of that item it is not a good source of the nutrient and if it has 20% or higher than it is a good source. Like a 2 liter of Pepsi has no nutritional value and the only thing listed is the total carbohydrates and it is at 14% and we know it is not the good carbs. The 6 key food label facts are something that is on just about every product that you buy and lets the consumer know how good or bad the product is. The first thing listed is the serving size. It has two parts the individual serving size and what the item as a whole as for a serving size, example a 2 liter of Pepsi is 12 ounces and you should get 6 servings out of it. The second part is calories. It shows the total calories per serving and some show unprepared and prepared and then it list total calories from fat. Three and four are combined and they are the nutrient count. The top section of nutrients are those we should avoid and the bottom list the good nutrients. Understand the foot note at the bottom of a label is number 5 and it does a breakdown of the nutrients based on a 2,000 calorie diet. Most products will have this and it does not change every product has same foot note just the amounts might change and if food label is to small the foot note will not be there. And the final section on the nutrition label is number 6 and it is percent daily value or as you see it written %DV and it basically tell you whether the product is high or low in

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