Food labelling: nutritional information

What's the deal with food labelling? Instead of helping, it can sometimes leave you feeling even more confused. Nutritionist Suzannah Olivier's guide to understanding nutritional information is here to help

• The nutrition panel
• How ingredients are ordered
• Sodium/Salt

The nutrition panel
Good or bad?: Good as long as you know what they mean. The prescribed details have to be included by law when a manufacturer makes a claim such as low-fat or high-fibre. It is often included voluntarily anyway.
What it means: It must give the amounts per 100g or 100ml of product (also sometimes amounts per serving are included). It must give energy in kilojouls and kilocalories (referred to as calories by most people), protein, carbohydrate and fat in grams. Also the amount of any nutrient for which a claim has been made (like fibre or unsaturated fats). Sometimes these items are broken down further and, for instance, carbohydrates will be broken down in to overall carbohydrates and sugars. If, for example, there is 40g of sugar (remember this is per 100g) then it means the product is 40% sugar!

How ingredients are ordered
Good or bad?: Good as it is always the same system.
What it means: Ingredients are strictly ordered by quantity. So if water is the first on the list for a frozen meat dish and the meat comes fifth on the list you know that it is not quite as 'meaty' as you might like! Equally if 3 of the first 4 or 5 ingredients of a breakfast cereal are sugars such as sucrose, glucose and corn syrup, you know it will be a very sweet product indeed.

Sodium/Salt
Good or bad?: Mostly to be avoided.
What it means: While health guidelines are for grams of salt daily (we need salt but not more than 6 grams daily) ingredients usually list sodium meaning you have to make the conversion. To work out how many grams of salt is in the product you need to multiply the sodium amount by 2.5. Most people don?t carry a calculator with them when shopping! This is another area where labelling is often confusing and where the traffic light system (see above) can really help to identify low-salt items.