Week 4 - Food labelling

Confident You Programme
Why should you read food labels?

Reading nutritional labels allows you to choose, check and compare between products, especially when it comes to choosing items that are lower in fats, sugar and salt.

Ingredients list

Did you know ingredients are listed in order of the highest weight?

In the example on the right the largest content is sugar and the lowest is white chocolate.

Allergens

A quick question to test your knowledge of allergens.

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On the ingredients list any of the 14 most common allergens will be emphasised with either bold text, different coloured text or underlined.  Is this true or false?

Your score is

Nutritional labelling

Most prepacked foods will also have nutritional labels giving details on calories, total fat and saturated fats, carbohydrate and of which are sugars, protein and salt. Details of additional nutrients can also be provided. The information is provided per 100g and may also include nutritional information per portion.

Traffic light labelling

Many food companies put traffic light labels which tell you if the products have low, medium or high amounts of fat, saturated fat, sugars and salt per serving or portion.

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Why is traffic light labelling useful?

Your score is

Quantities of fat, sugar and salt

The table below shows you guidelines on what is high and low when reading food labels.

 

Nutrient What is Low per 100g? What is High per 100g?
Fat 3g or less More than 17.5g
Saturated fat 1.5g or less More than 5g
Sugars 5.0g or less of total sugars More than 22.5g
Salt 0.3g or less More than 1.5g
Sodium 0.1g or less More than 0.6g

Claims

Nutrition and health claims can only be made when the product meets specific requirements.  For more information click on the link below:

NHS – Food labelling terms

Click on the button below so you can download the Change4Life Food Scanner app to help you identify products that are high and low in saturated fat, sugar and salt.

Get the app

Tasks

  1. To look at 10 packaged nutritional food labels and identify ones that are low or high in saturated fat, sugar and salt.
  2. Review your progress by completing the table below and compare the answers from week one.
What were your goals? What did you do to help you achieve your goals? What were the barriers? Think of the ways you can overcame the barriers
What is your weight?
How many minutes of exercise do you do per week?
How many portions of fruit and vegetables do you have per day?
How many glasses of water do you drink per day?
Do you read food labels?

Print out your table | Save your table as a PDF