How to Read a Nutrition Label

The Nutrition Facts label packs a lot into a small box, but you only need to read it in a set order. This guide walks you through the FDA label from top to bottom, shows you how to use the Percent Daily Value to judge a food quickly, and explains what the ingredients list and allergen statement tell you.

The label at a glance

Label section	What it tells you	What to do with it
Servings per container and serving size	How many servings are in the package and how much one serving is	Compare it with how much you actually eat
Calories	Energy in one serving	Multiply if you eat more than one serving
Nutrients to get less of	Saturated fat, sodium, added sugars	Look for a lower %DV
Nutrients to get more of	Dietary fiber, vitamin D, calcium, iron, potassium	Look for a higher %DV
Percent Daily Value (%DV)	How much one serving adds to a day’s total	5% DV or less is low; 20% DV or more is high
Footnote	Explains %DV and the 2,000 calories a day used for general nutrition advice	Remember your own needs may differ
Ingredients list	Everything in the food, in descending order by weight	The first few ingredients make up most of it
Allergen declaration	Any of the major food allergens	Check every time if you or your family has a food allergy

Start with servings and serving size

The top of the label shows how many servings are in the package and the size of one serving. The FDA explains that the serving size reflects the amount people typically eat or drink, and is not a recommendation of how much you should eat or drink.

Every number below the serving size applies to one serving. The FDA notes that if you eat two servings, you double the nutrient and calorie amounts, as well as the %DVs.

Calories

Calories show how much energy you get from one serving. The FDA notes that 2,000 calories a day is used as a general guide for nutrition advice, and that your own calorie needs may be higher or lower.

Calories alone don’t tell you what nutrients a food provides, so keep reading. Our guide to building a balanced plate shows how a single food fits into a full meal.

Nutrients to get less of

The FDA lists saturated fat, sodium, and added sugars as nutrients Americans generally eat too much of. When you compare similar foods, pick the one lower in these.

Saturated fat. Listed under Total Fat. The FDA’s Daily Value is 20 grams.
Sodium. The Daily Value for sodium is less than 2,300 milligrams per day. The FDA suggests you use the label to compare products, and check the serving size to make an accurate comparison.
Added sugars. These are sugars added during processing, plus table sugar, syrups, honey, and sugars from concentrated fruit or vegetable juices. The FDA says the Daily Value for added sugars is 50 grams per day based on a 2,000 calorie daily diet.

Notice that the label shows “Total Sugars” and then “Includes Added Sugars.” Per the FDA, total sugars include sugars naturally present in foods like milk and fruit as well as any added sugars, and there is no Daily Value for total sugars. The added sugars line is the one with a %DV.

Trans fat is also listed, but it has no %DV, because experts could not provide a reference value for trans fat, according to the FDA.

Nutrients to get more of

The FDA lists dietary fiber, vitamin D, calcium, iron, and potassium as nutrients Americans generally don’t get enough of. Here, a higher %DV is usually the better pick.

The values below come from the FDA’s Daily Value reference page, which also lists Daily Values for other nutrients:

Nutrient	FDA Daily Value
Dietary fiber	28 g
Vitamin D	20 mcg
Calcium	1,300 mg
Iron	18 mg
Potassium	4,700 mg

Use the Percent Daily Value

The FDA explains that the %DV shows how much a nutrient in a serving of a food contributes to a total daily diet, so you don’t need to do math with it. The FDA’s general guide to %DV gives a simple rule of thumb: 5% DV or less of a nutrient per serving is considered low, and 20% DV or more of a nutrient per serving is considered high.

Use it in two ways:

Judge a single food. A soup with 20% DV or more for sodium is high in sodium. A cereal with 20% DV or more for fiber is high in fiber.
Compare two foods. Line up the %DV for the same nutrient, but first make sure the serving sizes are the same.

The FDA also points out that you don’t have to give up a favorite food to eat a healthy diet: when a food you like is high in saturated fat, balance it with foods that are low in saturated fat at other times of the day.

The footnote

The FDA explains that the bottom of the label has a footnote that explains the % Daily Value and gives the number of calories used for general nutrition advice, which is 2,000 calories a day.

Read the ingredients list

The FDA explains that ingredients are listed in descending order of predominance by weight, so the first ingredient is the one used in the greatest amount.

A few ways to use it:

Check what comes first. If a type of sugar or refined flour leads the list, it makes up a large share of the food.
Look for whole grains. For breads, MedlinePlus suggests checking that whole wheat or another whole grain is the first ingredient.
Compare with the label. The ingredients list tells you what’s in the food, and the Nutrition Facts tell you how much of each nutrient you get.

Check the allergen statement

The FDA recognizes nine major food allergens: milk, eggs, fish, crustacean shellfish, tree nuts, peanuts, wheat, soybeans, and sesame. The FDA explains that the labels of most packaged foods must identify the food source of any of these, either in parentheses after the ingredient name, such as “whey (milk),” or in a “Contains” statement immediately after or next to the ingredients list.

The FDA also notes that a “may contain” statement is voluntary, and not all manufacturers use it. If you or someone you cook for has a food allergy, read the full label every time you buy a product, and talk with your doctor or an allergist about what to avoid.

A note on UK labels

If you shop in the UK, packs may also carry a front-of-pack label, and some of these use red, amber, and green colour coding. The NHS explains that colour-coded nutritional information tells you at a glance if the food has high, medium or low amounts of fat, saturated fat, sugars, and salt: red means high, amber means medium, and green means low.

If you follow a special diet

The %DV rule of thumb is built for the general public. If your doctor has told you to limit sodium, potassium, or sugar, for example because of a heart or kidney condition or diabetes, ask your doctor or a registered dietitian which numbers on the label matter most for you. See our medical disclaimer for more.

Once you’re comfortable with the label, put it to work in the aisle with our healthy grocery list on a budget, where cost per serving and the Nutrition Facts work together.