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Reading Nutrition Facts Labels

By Shereen Jegtvig, About.com

Updated February 20, 2009

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Nutrition Facts - Calories, Fat, Carbohydrates, and Protein

Nutrition Facts LabelImage © Shereen Jegtvig
This section of the Nutrition Facts food label contains information about calories, fat content, amount and types of carbohydrates, and amount of protein in the product. The label shows the amounts in grams (g) or milligrams (mg) and the percentage of the daily value (the amount needed every day) for each of these nutrients. This information is based on a 2,000 calorie per day diet. So it won't be exactly right for everybody. But it will give you an idea of how the food item will fit into your energy nutrient needs.

Notice that sodium information is located here rather than with the other minerals down lower on label. In the chicken noodle soup Nutrition Facts food label above, you can see that one serving of condensed chicken noodle soup has 37% of your daily value for sodium. If you eat the whole can of soup, you would get 92% of the recommended amount of sodium you should consume for the entire day.

This part of the label also contains information on fiber. You can see from our example, chicken noodle soup from a can doesn't contain much fiber.

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