Many people spend hours grocery shopping, trying to decipher all the numbers and nutritional “jargon” on the back of a packet and then just end up more confused than when they started. Understanding food labels is vital for you to make the best choices of the foods that are available so…………  Two of the tools that we can use to decide whether a product is a good choice are: the ingredients list and the nutrition information table. 

The ingredients list

• Ingredients are listed in descending order of weight i.e. from most to least.


• Don’t be fooled by the fancy wording either: Sucrose, molasses, dextrose, glucose, corn syrup, malt extract, disaccharides, fructose, lactose, maltose, monosaccharides, golden syrup and honey are all types of sugar!


• Copha, dripping, kremelta, hydrogenated fat, lard, milk solids, shortening and anything ending in ‘oil’ e.g. palm oil are all types of fat

• The nutrition information table gives a nutrient breakdown of the food product. Most tables will list nutrient values per serve and per 100g.


• When comparing different foods it is important to compare the nutrient values from the 100g column as serving sizes often vary even between similar food groups. Below are the nutritional panels from three different types of chocolate biscuits. Which one would you choose?