FOOD LABEL

Food labels provide nutrition facts and information about the foods that your family eats.

From the amount of calories, fiber, and total fat grams, to the food's ingredients, the food label is your key to the nutrition information in the foods you provide to your family.

It can help you to increase the healthy nutrients that you want your family to eat, like calcium and fiber, and limit nutrients that can be unhealthy, like fat, saturated fat, cholesterol, and sodium.

And reading food labels can you to compare foods that you are going to buy and choose foods that are more healthy than others.

Food labels provide nutrition facts and information about the foods that your family eats.

Serving size
The serving size and amount of servings per container is your real key to knowing how many calories and other nutrients are in the foods your family eats.

In general, a food with:

* 40 calories per serving is low in calories
* 100 calories per serving is moderate in calories
* 400 calories or more per serving is high in calories

Remember that many packages contain more than one serving and a typical serving is not necessarily the amount you can eat at one time.

For example, the nutrition label pictured above contains two servings in each container. So if you eat the whole thing by yourself, you are actually eating 500 calories (250 calories per serving X two servings), and not just 250 calories as the label makes it appear.

A common way that people overeat is by consuming oversized portions and underestimating how many calories are in the foods they eat. To help avoid this, you might choose to buy single serving packages or remove a single serving from a larger package and don't eat out of the bag or box itself. Repackaging large bags or boxes of food into smaller, single serving packages can also be helpful.

Percent Daily Value(DV)
Understanding the Percent Daily Values on a food label can help you choose foods that are high in good nutrients and low in bad nutrients.

Remember that 5% DV or less is low and 20% DV or more is high for a food component. So for things like fat, saturated fat, trans fat, cholesterol, or sodium, look for foods with a low % DV. For these nutrients, you should try to eat less than the 100% DV.

And look for a high % DV for 'good things,' like dietary fiber, vitamin A, vitamin C, calcium, and iron. You should be eating at least the 100% DV for these nutrients.

One thing to consider is that the % DV is based on a 2,000 calorie diet, which is the average energy needs for a child that is 7-10 years old. So for your older children and teens, they will likely need more than 100% DV.

Also remember that the Percent Daily Values are listed for a single serving, so if you eat two servings, you should double %DV. For this food label, you can see that eating two servings provides your kids with almost 80% of their Percent Daily Value of sodium!
#source= http://pediatrics.about.com/od/nutrition/ss/food_labels_8.htm