YMCA Healthy Living Magazine, powered by n4 food and health Winter 2016

SKYE SWANEY, APD Skye is a Dietitian, Nutritionist and food-lover based in Sydney. Her business Shift Nutrition, began because of her belief that everyone should know the power of eating well. Skye is passionate about helping people to be as happy and healthy, possible through wholesome, nutritious food. Learn more about Skye at shiftnutrition.com.au or n4foodandhealth.com HOW TO DECODE A FOOD LABEL IN FIVE EASY STEPS Nutrition expert Skye Swaney explains food labels and how to read them. earning to read food labels can be one of the best ways to make sure you’re choosing the healthiest foods possible. But they can seem like a mess of confusing words, dubious claims and intimidating tables. Let’s be honest, we generally want to get out of the supermarket as quickly as possible, not spend hours standing in the aisles reading labels! L Here are five steps you can follow so that you can quickly decode all the information and ultimately work out if this is a food you want to be eating or not. STEP 1. Find the ingredients list (what foods is the product made from?)   The most important thing to consider is what’s actually in the food – knowing the calorie content or type of fat is all well and good, but we eat food, not nutrients so a quick scan of the ingredients list is the best way to determine the nutritional value of a product. Ingredients are listed (generally underneath the nutrition information panel) in order of largest to smallest, by weight. So, if the first ingredient listed is sugar, that means that sugar is the main ingredient in that product. When you’re looking at the ingredients list, see how many items are in it, and whether you recognise these foods or not. If the product has a 14 YMCA HEALTHY LIVING MAGAZINE WINTER 2016 ridiculously long list of unpronounceable ingredients, it might be best left on the shelf. STEP 2. Find the nutrition information panel (what nutrients is the product made from?)  There are two columns in the nutrition information panel (NIP) – ‘per 100g’ and ‘per serve’. The per serve column is useful to look at as you want to work out how much of these nutrients you will actually be eating. The per 100g column allows you to compare this product with other products and see which one comes out best (as different products will most likely have different serving sizes). STEP 3. Focus on sugar, saturated fat and sodium Calories (kilojoules) are only part of the story. Yes, if you’re trying to lose weight, consuming fewer calories than you burn off is what matters at the end of the day. But the calorie content of a food tells us nothing about its nutritional value. Overall, we want to be aiming for minimal amounts of added sugar, saturated fat and sodium in our diets, so these are the things to focus on in the nutrition information panel. There’s sugar and then there’s sugar  Sugar that is added into a product is the type to avoid, not

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