Theresa Albert is a nutritionist, best-selling cookbook author, and Food Network personality, and we're thrilled to have her with us for the next few weeks to provide her unique brand of cooking and nutritional knowledge. Nutrition Labels in Canada are now standardized and must contain specific information that can help the decision on whether or not to choose a packaged item.  From my perspective, in order to balance a healthy life, we do need to opt for single ingredient foods as often as possible and when it’s not, to understand how to read packages to our greatest advantage. Each person’s required caloric intake is unique depending upon age, height, weight, activity level and metabolism. However, the labels assume that the reader is an average adult and measures the percentages accordingly.  This method isn’t perfect but it does provide some opportunity for you to ‘guess-timate’. It would take a book to explain the entire label, so I find it useful to break the topic down into a few key numbers that can help you decide within seconds at a grocery store if the item in your hand is right for you. By far, the most useful list is the ingredients since they must be ordered (by % weight) from most  to least. This means that you want to see real foods at the top end.

• The best ingredient lists are short and contain things that sound like food.

• Lengthy lists with unpronounceable words are often filled with preservatives or stabilizers.
• Avoiding items that contain the words enriched (meaning white) flour, hydrogenated oils, shortening, food coloring is relatively simple when you make reading this list a habit.

The second reliable piece of information is the calories. But this assumes that you have gone through the process of doing a calculation to know how many you need.  (There are plenty of sources online that will guide you through the process –  try the phrase “calorie calculator”; the best ones allow you to input all the activity done in a day and all the foods consumed in measured amounts).

• Health Canada mandates most of the information on the nutrition facts label including accurate calorie counts.

• Health Canada does not mandate that the “serving size” has to represent the average consumption so if you are using this information, be sure that you are consuming the size on the box.  It is often smaller than we think.

The third piece of valuable information is the sodium count.  (See blog titled xxx for more on salt) The sodium number on the panel is:

• Represented in grams and as a % DV (or daily value).

• But – Know that the numbers here are skewed since the recommended DV is 2500 mg per day or 1 measly teaspoon of table salt. This is the absolute max for someone without risk factors (being over 40 or having high blood pressure are risk factors that reduces the allowable amount) so you’d have to be sure to only get to 65-70% of your DV if you are in this category.

• The % amount is expressed for the average adult but kids are much more sensitive and should be consuming less.  Packages of foods commonly consumed by kids are not adjusted accordingly

The last piece of information that I look for is fibre, which is expressed in grams.  The average person needs between 25-40 grams per day. Canadians average between 4 and 11 grams per day.  Cereals and whole grain breads and crackers are a terrific way to get your fibre numbers up if you pay careful attention in this category. Using this method helps you make a quick 1,2,3,4 calculation and further investigation can happen at home at a more leisurely pace (i.e. when you aren’t screaming home from work and the kids aren’t screaming for some dinner!)