Decoding food labels is a common pressure point for many parents and carers concerned that their children might not be getting the right nutrition. The marketing and overabundance of information on the packaging can be overwhelming for those not versed in food labelling.
Take heed of Home Economist’s Mandy dos Santos’ three simple rules to take the hassle out of the weekly grocery shop and navigate tricky ingredients:
- If the ingredients don’t sound like food, it is likely they aren’t nutritionally sound
- Avoid foods which have processed fats, sugars and salt in the first three ingredients as they are more often a sometimes food than an everyday food. (Tip: Look out for tricky ways of disguising sugar and salt with sodium, dextrose, maltose and fructose)
- If your children have sensitivities to certain additives, my suggestion is to broadly avoid ingredients labelled with:
- 100s which are commonly colours and may cause behavioural consequences with children;
- 200s which are commonly preservatives and the sulphites may have health implications in many people, especially asthmatics;
- 600s which are glutamates. You might suspect your child to be sensitive to MSG which is mono sodium glutamate. The numbers generally labelled in the 600s are other glutamates which your children may also be sensitive too but will not be labelled as MSG. MSG can sometimes be found as a percentage of other ingredients such as yeast extracts or hydrolysed vegetable proteins so it might pay to avoid them as well.
On the back of the packet is also the Nutritional Information Panel or NIP. When comparing products always look at per 100 grams or per 100 mLs. Serving sizes of packaged foods have no legislative requirements and the food company has complete control over this number. Therefore a serving size of 25 grams of chips may in fact only be one third of what a regular person will eat in one sitting.
Tips for reading NIPs
For everyday foods try to aim for most products to have:
Sugars less than 5 grams per 100 grams.
Of course with foods or beverages which are made up of fruit or dairy they will be naturally higher with fructose and lactose as the main source of sugar. Ensure these foods/beverages are under 10-15 grams of sugar and then check that the fruit or a dairy derivative in the ingredients is the main contributor of that sugar level not sugar itself (or dextrose, maltose, honey, maple syrup, sucrose, glucose or even organic cane sugar… it is all sugar).
Sodium less than 120mg per 100grams.
Unfortunately most children consume well above the adequate sodium intake which is 300-600mg/day for 4-8 year olds and 400-800mg/day for 9-13 year olds.
For everyday foods such as cheese, sticking to the recommended criteria of less than 120mg per 100 grams is near impossible as salt is used as a curing agent. Bread is also quite high in sodium and difficult to reduce further, due to technological capabilities and consumer palates, so try to limit to 400 mg per 100 grams.
By Home Economist, Mandy dos Santos.
