We’re looking- but do we know what for?

September 25, 2006 – 10:57 pm

by Rigel

We’ve all walked through the grocery store flipping over packages reading the nutrition facts on the back- but do we know exactly what we’re looking for? Statistics say 80% of shoppers check nutrition labels regularly, but then 44% end up making unhealthy choices. So is it that 44% of us are only pretending to care? Or we honestly don’t get it? Some of the trouble could be that many people feel nutrition labels are too complicated, require too much math, and the “Daily Values” data is just plain confusing. Also, in a survey a majority of people trying to lose weight knew to check the calorie content, but they had no idea how many calories they actually needed in a day- and surprisingly many couldn’t even guess.

Want some tips on decoding food labels? Karen Collins, R.D. says that the “confusing” Daily Values percentages can be summed up as: a DV value on a food item of 5% or lower means that food is low in that nutrient, and a DV value of 20% or up is considered high. She also stresses the importance of understanding what comprises a healthy diet- she says that we should all aim to fill 1/3 of our plates with meat or protein, and the other 2/3 should be veggies, grains, and fruit.

The hard part for me is remembering all the different things I should be looking for- am I going low calorie? Low fat? High fiber? 100% natural or fortified? What I need is some kind of handheld machine I can just aim at the grocery store shelf and it’ll tell me “yes” or “no.” Like a nutritional Magic Eight Ball- but without all the frustrating “ask me again later” options!