By JoLee Seaborn

Nutrition labels are printed on every packaged food sold in the United States. You would be surprised how many Americans don’t look at them at all and have no idea what they mean. Knowing how to read a food label and applying it to your diet can be a great tool for improving your health.

The first item listed on every food label is serving size and the number of servings per container. To figure out how many calories are in a container, multiply the number of calories per serving by the number of servings per container.

For instance, a box of crackers may contain 16 servings with 120 calories per serving. If you sit down and eat the whole box, you’ve eaten about 1,920 calories. The calories per serving section of labels can be used to compare with other similar products.

As a general rule, foods containing 40 or fewer calories per serving are considered low calorie foods, foods containing about 100 calories per serving are moderate calorie foods and foods containing 400 calories or more are considered high calorie foods.

Calories from fat are listed in the same section as calories per serving. To determine the percentage of calories from fat, divide the number of calories from fat by the number of calories per serving. If the same crackers from above have 70 calories from fat per serving then each serving of crackers is about 58 percent fat.

Below the calorie section is a list of nutrients. The content of these items in food is based on the Percent Daily Value or (DV). Percent Daily Values are based on a 2000-calorie diet. You probably don’t know how many calories you consume in a normal day or how much your body actually needs.

The Percent Daily Values can still be used as a reference to base your intake on. A food which contains 5 percent or less of a nutrient is considered to have low content of that nutrient. Foods that contain 20 percent or more of a nutrient are considered to have high content of that nutrient.

The first five items listed as percentages are total fat, saturated fat, trans fat, cholesterol and sodium. These are all nutrients which Americans often get too much of.

Although your body needs sodium and fat for proper functioning it is recommended by the American Dietetic Association that you limit the amount of these nutrients you consume. Excess consumption of these nutrients may lead to cardiovascular disease and excess weight gain.

The American Dietetic Association also recommends keeping your intake of cholesterol, saturated fat and trans fat as low as possible. Saturated fat, trans fat and cholesterol are not needed from your diet for normal bodily function. Keeping your dietary intake of these nutrients as low as you can may help to lower your chances of developing cardiovascular disease and some cancers.

If you eat a bowl of cereal in the morning, which contains 10 percent of your daily phosphorus, you know you still need another 90 percent to meet the recommendation of 100 percent for that day. The same goes for the rest of the nutrients on the label. Eating a diet with a variety of fruits and vegetables every day will make meeting the recommended Daily Values much easier.

Dietary fiber, Vitamin A, Vitamin C, calcium and iron are all nutrients Americans are at risk of not getting enough of. Pay special attention to the percentages of these and try to increase your intake if you are not getting close to 100 percent in your diet each day.

No percentage is listed for protein or sugar. Unless a food item is intended for children four years or younger or the product claims to be “high protein,” manufactures are not required to list protein as a percentage. No recommendation has been set for the amount of sugar an individual should eat each day so it would be impossible to list sugar intake as a percentage.

Nutrition labels are an excellent tool to help Americans plan our diets and make sure we are meeting our bodies’ needs.

JoLee Seaborn is a senior majoring in nutrition. Her health column runs weekly on Wednesdays.