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Sollid said it’s probably easier for people to pay more attention to the actual amounts in grams and milligrams of macronutrients than it is to follow the Percent Daily Values on nutrition labels, which are based on a 2,000 calorie diet.

“I don’t know that the average person can quickly interpret the DVs in the right way, because those are also based on your calorie needs,” he said. In many cases, you’re probably not consuming exactly 2,000 calories per day.

He said that while some recommendations, like for sodium, are the same regardless of caloric intake (and so are easier to follow with the PDV), other recommendations, like for carbohydrates, depend on how many calories you need to manage your weight.

“A simple rule of thumb is, you want to look for products that have more unsaturated than saturated fats,” Sollid said. “That’s just kind of a general nutrition advice, that’s probably easiest for most people to comprehend.

He said generally you don’t want to focus on your total grams of fat — you want to focus on the type of fat you eat.

Unsaturated fats are not required to be marked on nutrition labels, but depending on the product, they may be voluntarily posted. Those unsaturated fats, particularly polyunsaturated and monounsaturated fats are the kinds of fats that can be beneficial for heart health, Sollid told INSIDER.

Meanwhile, he said saturated fats should be kept to a minimum but not necessarily avoided.

“It’s not that saturated fat should be avoided, it’s that those other types of fat, the unsaturated variety, should be emphasized.”

Trans fat was only added to the nutrition facts label in 2006. Sollid said it was the only new line added to the label since its original release in the early ’90s, before the newest regulation changes in the past few years.

“It’s called out on the label due to its connection to heart disease,” Sollid said. “Trans fat should be kept as low as possible.”

He said because there’s not much evidence that shows dietary cholesterol affects blood cholesterol, cholesterol on nutrition labels aren’t the most important number to be watching.

“If there were one line on the label that I would say would be the least important and I had to choose one, I’d probably say it’s this one, simply because the evidence connecting dietary cholesterol to your blood cholesterol is not strong,” Sollid said. “The issue with cholesterol is more the other nutrients that foods with cholesterol tend to carry with them. [High cholesterol foods] would tend to be higher in saturated fat, for example. And lower in fiber.”

In terms of sodium intake, there is a set recommended amount, regardless of caloric intake or gender. The CDC recommendation is 2,300mg per day but Sollid said most people likely consume from 3,400 to 3,500mg daily.

“Sodium is a hotly debated topic in nutrition science and currently where the recommendations land are on the 2,300mg [mark],” he said. “You’ll hear from a lot of people that that’s maybe overly cautious or that’s too low. Some people say that’s too high. A lot of people advocate for 1,500mg as the recommendation.”

But this varies from person to person. If someone is salt-sensitive or has high blood pressure, they should be more mindful of the 2,300mg recommendation, Sollid added.

“You’d probably want to be more specific when it comes to carbohydrates,” Sollid said. “Now, people with diabetes may have to look at the total carbohydrates more closely than someone who doesn’t, but even someone with diabetes would also want to be looking at things like fiber and total sugars because those are just general indicators for the nutrient-density of a product.”

“You want to be looking at increasing your fiber intake where possible and packaged foods have labels that tell you those types of things,” he told INSIDER. “It’s less of a concern if you’re consuming a lot of fruits and vegetables, but similar to fiber intake, no one’s meeting those requirements either.”

The general recommendation from the US Department of Agriculture is 14g for every 1,000 calories consumed. He said how much fiber you need will fluctuate depending on your calorie consumption.

He said although sugar intake has a similar recommendation to saturated fats — the recommendation is more about nutrient displacement than it is about negative health effects.

So if you’re eating more than 10% of your calories from sugar, Sollid said you’re not likely to get your recommended amounts of other nutrients.

“People often confuse what that number means,” Sollid said. “It’s not a threshold where all of a sudden your diet becomes unhealthy because you ate more than 10% of your calories from added sugars.”

“Now just like with everything we eat, whether its saturated fat or sodium, there are consequences to eating too much added sugar,” he added. This could include heart disease or obesity.

“You do need protein, so you do want to get at least a certain amount, but [people in the US] tend to get enough, so underconsumption is not the concern necessarily,” Sollid said. “But you do want to be looking to make sure it has an adequate amount of protein.”

Although The New York Times reported that individuals in the US typically consume plenty of protein per day, Sollid added that protein helps you feel full and satisfied and, like fiber, it can help you feel fuller for longer.

Required vitamins and minerals for every nutrition label are vitamin A, vitamin C calcium, and iron.

“Those have been selected because people don’t generally consume enough of them,” Sollid told INSIDER. “They’re called out on the labels because they want people to be more aware of how and where to get these nutrients from. And they’re each important for different reasons.”

He said that if you’re generally following a healthy diet, the “minutiae” of those vitamins and minerals aren’t a major concern. But if you have health concerns, he suggested speaking to your dietitian and doctor to ensure you’re properly meeting your vitamin needs.

Source: https://www.thisisinsider.com/what-nutrition-fact-labels-tell-you-2019-1#you-should-pay-attention-to-vitamins-and-minerals-with-the-help-and-recommendations-of-your-doctor-if-you-have-specific-health-needs-12