Many people turn to counting calories when they want to lose weight. But how many of us really know what theyre reading when they scroll through a nutrition label? Here are a few things you should know before tossing any item into your grocery cart.

Serving size is the first line of the nutrition label and the single most important thing to understand. A product that is being marketed as a low calorie snack is only talking about one serving. So if you are eating the whole box, rest assured you are getting more calories than you bargained for.

Frequently, when buying a bag of chips or a drink many consumers think, this looks like one serving. But cute, individually wrapped items can be deceiving. Many snack-sized items often have 2.5 servings. That means that you can take the calories per serving, lets say they are 150, and multiply them by the amount of servings. Eat that cute, individual bag of personal chips and voila, those personal chips just gave your body 375 calories. Doesnt sound like such a healthy snack anymore, does it? Before you pick up an item that you plan on devouring solo, make sure that its just meant just for one.

The same advice applies when considering what bread to buy in the grocery store. When you look at the nutrition label, youll see that most brands consider just one slice of bread to be one serving. But its not easy to make a sandwich with just one slice! Look for bread that offers two slices for less than 150 calories with a good helping of fiber (more on that later).

Fat Matters

Immediately under calories on the nutrition label youll find that foods sometimes offer calories from fat. Generally, you should try to keep fat in your food at an absolute minimum unless the product contains healthy fats from nuts, grains, seeds or avocado. And before you even go there, let me I assure you, Oreos and Doritos do not.

Most people know by now that not all fats are created equal. Companies in the US are now required to list trans fat since they have been directly linked to clogged arteries (which can lead to heart attacks and strokes). In general, make sure you see a big fat zero next to the words trans fat on the nutrition label. Polyunsaturated fats are the healthy fats, while saturated fats should be consumed in limited quantities. The combination of saturated fat and cholesterol is actually what leads to higher levels of cholesterol in the blood. So its not just cholesterol (which is the next item on the label) that you should be looking at.

Watch Out for Sodium

Sodium is another hot ticket item since it is essential for proper cell function, but overwhelmingly, Americans are consuming way too much of this mineral since it is over-used as a preservative for packaged products. This is where knowing how much is okay is important. The RDA suggests that healthy individuals under the age of 51 limit sodium intake to 2,300 mg per day. Check out the label of your favorite frozen meal, most have close to 1,000 mg, while some even surpass 2,000 mg -- and thats just for one meal.

Carbs Are NOT the Enemy

Read more from the original source:
How to Read Nutrition Labels