Ask the expert: how do I read food labels?

I know reading food labels is important but honestly, the information provided on most packaging is very confusing. How can I choose healthier options off the shelves?

I’m glad you are taking the trouble to check food labels – this can help you avoid dietary pitfalls and reduce the risk of many diseases. I shop using these five simple rules:

Rule 1: Go beyond calories. Most of us look at just this and a misconception is that if it’s below 150 calories it must be healthy. What’s far more important is the breakdown of the calories – check how many are from fat, carbohydrates and protein. If a lot are from fat, it may not be good.

Rule 2: Check the serving size. Often the numbers are manipulated just to make the product seem like a low-calorie/low-fat one.

Rule 3: Have a look at ‘sugars’ under carbohydrates – if it is above 8g the product is better off left on the shelf.

Rule 4: The package might say ‘trans fat free’ but if you look at the ingredients and see the word ‘partially hydrogenated’ it means it contains trans fat but it’s under 1g. We don’t realise how many grams of this heart-damaging fat we ingest in a day when we overlook this. Fat-free chips and sugar-free products are generally loaded with this.

Rule 5: If you can’t do any of the above just run through the ingredients as they are always in the order of predominance. If the first ingredient is sugar/rice syrup, it means the product contains a lot of it. So even if the front of that pack says fat-free or low-fat it’s actually screaming ‘all sugar’.

A simple rule is if you don’t recognise the ingredient or struggle to pronounce it, you are better off not eating it. Chances are the ingredient is a chemical that you don’t want to subject your system to.