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A Simple Guide to Reading Food Labels

A Simple Guide to Reading Food Labels

Updated 15 March 2019 12:59 PM

If you want to discover what’s really in your food products, this simple guide will show you how to read food labels so you can feel informed and confident in your nutrition decisions.


  1. Look for the ‘Nutrition Information Panel’. This will show you the fat content (both total, saturated and often transfat), protein content, carbohydrate content (sugar and total), sodium (salt) content, dietary fibre content and amount of energy (including calories and kilojoules) the food contains.
  2. To compare similar food items, you can use the benchmark ‘per 100g’ measurement on the Nutrition Information Panel. This measurement is also useful in determining the nutritional value of the product.
  3. Underneath the nutritional table, there will be an ingredients list. The ingredient that appears first in this list is the highest percentage of content. In descending order (most used to least used) the other ingredients will follow.
  4. In the ingredients list, keep an eye out for additives including flavours, preservatives and colours. These are usually the ingredients that have numbers next to their name. 
  5. If you’re allergic to common food products, you can get some indication of whether the product contains common allergens on the food label. The ANZ Food Standards Code requires that peanuts, tree nuts, milk, eggs, sesame seeds, fish, shellfish, lupins, soy and wheat be declared on labels whenever they are present as ingredients or as components of food additives or processing aids. 


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Science Notes
Despite being advertised as ‘Fat free’ or ‘Heart safe’, often the best way of discovering the ‘true story’ or the nutritional value of any food product, is to check out its food label.  To choose products that are as healthy as possible, here are some safe guidelines:

It is generally recommended that you should select products that have less than 5g of total fat per 100g. Saturated fat content should be as low as possible and sugar content should remain less than 10g of sugar per serve. Where possible, choose products that are low in salt and contain less than 300mg sodium per 100g. Ideally, salt content should be less than 120mg of sodium per 100g.

Make sure you read the food label before you buy the item. Be smart when it comes to reading labels - actually read the ingredients list as most of the rest of the commentary on the label is usually well researched and very clever marketing.
Related Tip
A University of Melbourne study found that over  50% of anaphylaxis self-reports were related to product labels not containing appropriate warning. 

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