Posts Tagged ‘food label’

Food labels – sugar, fat and saturated fat. How much is OK?

Monday, May 7th, 2012

Today more and more of us are becoming aware of how important what we eat is to our health and well-being. There’s lots of information about the value of healthy eating but it’s often difficult to work out how much of everything we should be eating as part of a healthy diet. This is especially true of food labelling – all the facts and figures can be very confusing and sometimes hard to understand.

In this blog Sabrina will help you to decide what would be considered a low or high amount of sugar and fat? Also, when looking at food labels what do you need to focus on – do you look at the ‘per serving’ or ‘per 100g’? So here’s the general rule thumb when looking at a food label.

Firstly, do you use ‘per serving’ or ‘per 100g’?

As a guide use the serving size when that is the amount you are going to have for the whole day, for instance, a ready meal, if it’s something you are likely to have in smaller amounts throughout the day, for instance, snacks look at the per 100g.

As for if is it healthy or not…

Sugar: Try to keep sugar intake low.

15g is high.

5g is low.

Fat: Ideally you want to keep fat intake low.

20g is high.

3g is low.

Be warned – when reading food labels there is a difference between carbohydrate and sugar. A high carbohydrate value is fine as long as the ‘amount as sugars’ value is low.

Easter Eggstravaganza

Monday, April 9th, 2012

So it’s Easter time again! As I researched the content for this blog I came across this article on the Daily Mail website and decided to share it with you all. It’s definitely an interesting read. I hope this helps to keep you all on the right track. Enjoy!

 

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-382232/Easter-Eggstravaganza-Surviving-Easter-diet.html

Calories, so what are they?

Monday, November 7th, 2011

A calorie is simply the unit that we use to measure energy.

All foods have a ‘calorific value’ and this is simply the amount of calories (energy) that a food will supply your body when it is eaten. Food labels on packaged foods usually list the energy content in two units; one is kcals (calories) the other is in kj (joules).

 

Your body needs energy to be able to fuel metabolic pathways that enable the body to work properly. We are all individuals and we have our own unique metabolic rate (this is the rate at which our body consumes calories per day). The average person’s metabolic rate is approximately 2000 calories per day.

The simple truth is that there is a ‘balance of energy’ in your body, if you burn more or less calories (through activity) than your body consumes daily (through food), you will lose or gain weight accordingly.

So how do you ‘burn’ calories?

There are a number of reasons why calories are burned in your body.

  • Your body requires a certain number of calories per day to simply stay alive. This is called Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR).  Your body burns these calories to maintain the most basic functions of your body such as breathing, blood circulation and brain activity.
  • The rest of the calories are ideally burned through exercise and activity.  Everything you do results in you burning calories – washing up, hoovering, climbing the stairs, anything that involves movement will contribute to the total calories burned by the body.

 

Tips for Eating Less Fat

Monday, August 29th, 2011

Eating too much fat increases amongst other things your risk of heart disease and encourages weight gain.

Research has shown that our diet generally contains too much fatty food and that we can all benefit from eating less fat.

Instead of getting our energy from starchy foods (carbohydrates) like bread and potatoes, we rely too much on foods that are high in animal fats such as red meat, butter and cheese.

 

Tips for reducing fat intake:

  • Choose lean meat. Trim all visible fat from meat and poultry prior to cooking.
  • Choose low fat milk; choose semi-skimmed or skimmed milks.
  • Choose low fat yoghurts.
  • Choose low fat spread.
  • Fry very occasionally using olive, sunflower or rapeseed oil. Choose grilling or baking instead.
  • Beware of the hidden fats in biscuits, cakes, chocolate, pastry and savoury snacks. Always read your food labels.
  • Fill up on fruit and vegetables.
  • Look out for low fat snacks, low fat yoghurt and fruit.
  • Use oven chips rather than fried.