Understand this table and avoid the nutritional trap of packaged food
Today I'm going to teach you how to check the nutrition table and ingredient list on food packaging, identify "calorie bombs", buy healthier food, better control our diet, and protect the results of our exercise!
01
food nutrition chart
The pre-packaged foods we buy in supermarkets or made in packaging materials and containers are collectively referred to as pre-packaged foods, such as milk, sausages, potato chips, bread, snacks, etc. All belong to pre-packaged foods.
This type of food is easy to buy and use, but most of them have "nutrition traps". Let's learn how to avoid these traps and choose healthy foods through the information in the food nutrition table.
According to the "GB28050-2011 General Principles of Nutrition Labeling of Prepackaged Foods of National Food Safety Standard" implemented on January 1, 2013, the nutritional information of food must be marked on (except) prepackaged food bags, and the authenticity must be guaranteed, and no false exaggeration shall be allowed. , so we can get clear and reliable nutritional information from the food nutrition table
《GB28050-2011》
The mandatory contents of food nutrition labels include the content of energy, core nutrients (protein/carbohydrate/fat) and their percentages in the Nutrient Reference Value (NRV).
Nutritional composition of a food
Our main concerns are the following:
① Look at the energy of food. For example, the energy of the food in the picture above is 1559 kJ (kJ÷4=kcal, that is, 389.75kcal), which is a very high-calorie food, equivalent to 2 bowls of white rice.
So many foods that seem to have no calories, after reading their nutrition table, you will find that the calories are surprisingly large, which is why a large number of people feel that it is difficult to lose weight - they eat more calories than they think many.
② Looking at the protein content, carbohydrate content, and fat content, I personally recommend choosing foods that are as close as possible to these three nutrients, and the nutritional intake will be more balanced (such as the milk in the picture below). At the same time control the amount of carbohydrates, do not eat too much sugar.
③ There is another point we should pay attention to in fat, that is, trans fatty acids. The Nutrition Facts list does not mandate trans fatty acids, so some foods have them and some don't.
Trans fatty acids mainly appear in the cooking process of daily life, especially in frying and roasting. Long-term excessive intake of trans fatty acids will increase the risk of cardiovascular disease.
What we should pay attention to is: when the content of trans fatty acids is less than 0.3g/100g, it is allowed to mark "0 trans fatty acids" (we will learn how to identify trans fatty acids in the ingredients list later)
Nutritional composition of a food
Fat is mainly divided into: saturated fat, unsaturated fat; Omega-3 and trans fatty acids are two special fatty acids under unsaturated fatty acids. Omega-3s are essential fatty acids that the body cannot naturally synthesize, and trans fatty acids are the number one "bad fat" to avoid, increasing the risk of heart disease, stroke, diabetes and other chronic diseases.
The best sources of fat in our daily diet should be monounsaturated fatty acids and Omega-3, reduce the intake of saturated fatty acids and reject trans fatty acids.
? Meat, butter, lard with saturated fatty acids.
?Omega-3 fatty acids sardines, salmon, tuna.
• Monounsaturated fatty acids: olive oil, avocados, nuts.
?Trans fatty acids: mostly found in fried food, puffed food, vegetable shortening
④ Salt content. In the food nutrition table, the sodium content × 2.5 is the salt content (for example, the sodium content in the above picture is 920mg=2.3g salt), and the daily salt content recommended in the "2016 Dietary Nutrition Guidelines for Chinese Residents" is no more than 6g
**## (The World Health Organization recommends no more than 5g per day).
**## "2016 Dietary Nutrition Guidelines for Chinese Residents"
The following picture is the ingredient list of the well-known junk food-instant noodles. We can see that in addition to the high calorie and poor nutrient distribution, the biggest problem is that the sodium content is seriously exceeding the standard. The salt content of a pack of instant noodles is about 4.8g, which is also That is to say, after eating this bread, you can basically not eat salt.
**## Ingredients list of a brand of instant noodles
The following is an excerpt from the World Health Organization website:
High sodium intake (>2 g/day, equivalent to 5 g of table salt per day) and insufficient potassium intake (less than 3.5 g per day) lead to high blood pressure and increased risk of heart disease and stroke.
? Most people eat too much salt (9-12 grams per day on average), or twice the recommended maximum intake.
• A daily salt intake of less than 5 grams in adults helps reduce blood pressure and the risk of cardiovascular disease, stroke and coronary heart disease. The main benefit of lowering salt intake is the reduction in high blood pressure.
? It is estimated that if global salt consumption were reduced to recommended levels, 2.5 million deaths could be prevented each year.
⑤ The amount indicated in the nutrition table. This is easy to understand. All the information on the table is calculated based on its marked components, such as 30g per portion and 100g per 100g in the figure below. If you calculate the default unit per 100g, there will be a big error. value.
**## Nutrition table of a brand of potato chips
⑥ Daily intake (NRV%). The daily intake is listed based on a 2000-calorie daily meal plan, and there are certain differences according to gender, age and physical status for our reference.
When we choose food, for fat, sugar (carbohydrate), sodium, choose food with a lower daily percentage as much as possible, for some dietary fiber, vitamins, minerals that exist on the table, you need to intake the target is 100%
**## Nutrition table of a brand of oatmeal
02
food ingredient list
The food nutrition table is like we roughly introduce the nutritional content information in the whole food, and the food ingredient list is to tell us what is in the food.
The "GB7718-2011 General Rules for the Labeling of Prepackaged Foods of National Food Safety Standard" promulgated in 2011 requires the content to be marked, so the information obtained from the ingredient list is also reliable
(I have repeatedly emphasized that the information is reliable because some practitioners are open-mouthed, and they even say that they can write as much information as they want, which is all a lie.) With the nutrition table, we will have a complete understanding of the food.
① The longer the food ingredient list, the less healthy it is. The longer the food ingredient list, the more complicated the processing process, the more likely it will carry excess calories and additives, such as a brand of spicy strips in the picture below. There are 7 lines of ingredients... You can look up the ingredients list of the milk before.
Ingredients list of a brand of spicy sticks
② Trans fatty acids hidden in the ingredient list. When looking at the food ingredient list, even if trans fatty acids are marked as 0 grams in the nutrition ingredient list, we need to pay attention to whether there are margarine, margarine, non-dairy creamer, vegetable butter, hydrogenated vegetable oil, cocoa butter substitute, etc. These are the vests of "trans fatty acids". Pregnant women should pay special attention to preventing excessive intake of trans fatty acids.
Image source network
③ Order of ingredients list. According to the regulations, the higher the content in the food, the higher the position in the ingredient list, so this is also one of the basis for us to judge the authenticity of the food. For example, in the fruit juice drink of a certain brand in the picture below, the first and third places are sugar, the second place is water, and the fourth place is fruit juice, indicating that this fruit juice drink is basically a bottle of sugar water.
A certain brand of fruit juice drinks and food ingredients list
The above are the points that we need to pay attention to when buying food. When buying, we should look at the nutrition table of the ingredient list, and understand what to eat. Don’t be a “confused foodie”. Healthy eating requires us to pay attention to the details and start with the little things around us. , long-term persistence can achieve excellent results.**********