Food Labeling Translated

moynihans2008
Jan 16, 2020
3 min read

If you are trying to eat more healthily, manage your weight or looking for a balanced diet then it is very important to understand the jargon used on food labels to guarantee that you know exactly what you are consuming.

The words ‘reduced fat’, ‘less fat’ or ‘less salt’ are used to attract us into thinking a product is a healthy choice but what that actually means is that they are reduced or less than another or original version of the same product. Therefore, it might be healthier rather than healthy! Similarly, ‘vitamin enriched’ sounds healthy but the product can still be highly calorific.

Likewise, the use of wording like reduced fat, light or lite or 90% fat free are all very misleading. By law a product can only say low fat if it contains less than 3g of fat per 100g and fat-free when it contains less than 0.15g of fat per 100g. Lite or 90% fat free still could mean the product is high in fat. If a product claims to be low in sugar then it has to have less than 5g of sugar per 100% and ‘reduced sugar’ product contains at least 30% less sugar than the standard version of the product. The ingredient list, usually on the back of the packaging, must list the ingredients in descending order of weight. By looking at the first couple of ingredients you will get a good idea if the product is high in fat or sugar.

Here is a translation of some more terminology that you might also find useful:

Organic –contains 95% organic ingredients and 5% non-specific organic ingredients.

No added sugar - means just that, no added sugar! But this does not mean no natural sugars.

Farm Fresh – this is a meaningless statement and can mean whatever the manufacturer wants it to mean.

Reduced salt - must have less than 0.5g of sodium per 100g of product. Although this sounds low, it is actually a lot and ideally, we should aim for 2g of sodium a day in total.

In addition to the percentage content in products, manufacturers must inform us if a food has under-gone a process eg, smoked, dried etc. If there are any pictures on the packaging then the product must have that ingredient in it and not just the flavouring, for example if there is a picture of a strawberry then it must contain strawberries.

For products where the name is explicit, for example Tomato Soup, the label must tell us the percentage of tomato in the soup.

If a product has a health claim, for example beneficial to health, this must be backed up with an explanation. However, labels are not allowed to claim they can treat, prevent or cure a disease or medical condition!

Some food packaging (about two-thirds of packaged products) contains traffic light labelling, which shows at a glance if the food has high, medium or low amounts of fat, saturated fat, sugars and salt: red means high. amber means medium etc. These are useful to compare the nutritional content of different products but be smart, the information may not relate to the serving size but per 100g so double check how much you are eating and adjust your calculations accordingly. The ingredient list, usually on the back of the packaging, must list the ingredients in descending order of weight. By looking at the first couple of ingredients you will get a good idea if the product is high in fat or sugar.

In the UK we consume 79 million ready meals each week but in terms of labelling they can be a minefield for the disconcerted shopper. Most supermarkets have their own range of ‘healthier’ ready meals and although they may be lower in calories, they are also low in other important ingredients. Premium own brand ready meals may use the words ‘luxury’ but will most likely be higher in fat, salt and sugar. Remember a ready meal is processed and will contain preservatives too to increase the shelf-life.

Have a go at guessing how much sugar is in these products: