How to Read Nutrition Labels

August 26, 2025

Food tabla nutricional help us make healthier choices. They provide information on calories, fat, fibre, sugars, sodium and protein, among others. They are also helpful in identifying foods that may be good sources of nutrients that we want to get more of (like fibre, vitamins and minerals) or to avoid (saturated fat, added sugars and salt). In addition, some front-of-pack nutrition labels use red, amber and green colour coding to indicate the level of risk for certain nutrients, such as saturated fat, trans fat, sodium and added sugars.

The nutrient content of a product is listed on the Nutrition Facts panel as a percentage of the Recommended Daily Intake (RDI). The % DV tells how much a serving of the food contributes to your dietary intake of that nutrient. The nutrient amounts are based on the assumption that you consume 2,000 calories per day.

How to Read Nutrition Labels

If the % DV is less than 5% for a nutrient, it means that one serving of the food provides very little of that nutrient. Likewise, if the % DV is 20% or more, it indicates that one serving of the food contributes a lot of that nutrient to your diet.

Understanding nutrition labels requires health literacy, which is the ability to obtain, process and understand basic health information. Studies show that a large percentage of adults have only basic or below basic health literacy, so they might struggle to understand the nutrition label on their food package.