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Learn to Read Food Nutritional Labels and Lose Weight

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Aman Agarwal
Learn to Read Food Nutritional Labels and Lose Weight

If you have decided to lose weight, then one of the things you will need to do is to eat better. To eat better you really have to know what you are eating, so it is time to learn what the food labels on store-bought packages really are nutritionally telling you.

We have all turned a can around and looked at it, but did you really know what you were looking at? Bunch of words and numbers, but what do they mean? It really is time to educate yourself on the numbers that go with cholesterol, total fat, sodium, protein, and carbohydrates.

Sometimes it has numbers with or without percentages, but you need to understand how they work together.

The thing that you need to know is what is the required amount of protein, sodium and all the others that you should be getting daily and should not be getting more of. Then you need to be able to look at the nutritional facts on the product and decide if it has too much or too little of it.

If you are on a special diet, then make sure that you read the label so what you take in goes inside your diet rights and wrongs. It is especially important to keep track of your sugar intake if you are trying to lose weight.

Food labels come from companies and they can truly be deceiving. A big point here is that if it says something like fat-free or sugar-free, do not assume that it is good for you or will help you lose weight.

There is only one way to know what is in what you want to buy and that is to read the label, compare the label to what you know and want, then buy if it falls within the parameters of what you are trying to do.

So let us take a look at what is on a label. First off understand that the government has now applied parameters so you will know just what you are getting.

Fat-Free – Less than 0.5 grams of fat in every serving

Low Fat – Less than 3 grams of fat in every serving

Learn – Less than 10 grams of fat, 4.5 grams of saturated fat, and no more than 95 milligrams of cholesterol in every serving

Light (Lite) – 1/3 fewer calories or no more than ½ the fat of the higher-calorie, higher-fat version; or no more than ½ the sodium of the higher-sodium version

Cholesterol Free- Less than 2 milligrams of cholesterol and 2 grams (or less) of saturated fat in every serving

In the next article, we will break down the nutritional label and show you exactly what everything means. 

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Aman Agarwal
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