Understanding labels

[Anonymous]

I need a fast course on reading food labels, and what to watch out for. Is there a workshop or something? I really don't have a lot of time and don't want to start reading lots of books.
I must moved here from a country where a sausage is a sausage, will not contain sugar or syrups, and the label will tell you the % of each ingredient, including salt and preservatives if there were any. So food shopping here is a bit of a challenge for me.
Please do not take this post as a criticism, if you want to transform my question please think about posting another topic.
Yes, I buy fresh food and veg, and know of Whole Foods and find it expensive etc. But this is not what I am asking, I am asking about how to become knowledgeable about reading labels. Or to ask myself the right questions ....
Thank you

[Anonymous]

I used to teach this in my ESL class for new immigrants!

The nice thing about food labels in the US is that they are entirely standardized. You get a list of ingredients, and then a little chart which tells you the serving size of one portion, how many portions in the package, and then the nutritional content of one portion.

Here's what I look for typically when I'm grocery shopping:
On ingredients--the ingredients are listed in the order of how much of each is in the food. So if the number one ingredient listed is sugar or high fructose corn syrup, I am cautious. Similarly if something seems out of place, like sugar as the number 3 ingredient on a granola bar, instead of nuts or seeds or whatever, I am cautious.

On the nutrition label, I look for high sodium content, high fat (both bad!), and high fiber (good!!). The label lists the percentage of the recommended daily allowance (RDA) in one serving of the food. I try to imagine the food as a percentage of the amount of food I'll eat in a day.

So for example, let's say I'm choosing between two brands of sausage. I plan to make sausage and pasta for dinner, so I guesstimate that dinner is about 40% of our daily calorie intake, and the sausage is about a third of dinner--so call it 15% of the daily calorie intake.

If one serving of the sausage has 50% of the daily sodium and 60% of the daily fat allowance, it's not a great choice. If it has 30% of the fat and 25% of the sodium, much better, especially if it's the major source of both of these things in the meal I'm making.

[Anonymous]

I like this site:
http://www.foodfacts.com/