3.1: Decode My Nutrition Label

What We Are Learning

This lesson helps us learn to read food labels. A nutrition label is the sticker or chart on food packages that tells us what is inside the food. Reading it can help us stay healthy and safe.

Our goal is to eat less fast food.

Let's Talk About Our Goals

Let's talk about our SMART Goals (goals that are clear and easy to track).

• How is your goal going so far?
• What could help you do better? (These are called "grows.")
• What are you already doing well? (These are called "glows.")

Guideline: Eat Less Fast Food

Which part of today's lesson matches this guideline? Does anyone have a goal about this?

Pick one activity to do:

1. Guideline Popcorn: Take turns calling out all 8 health guidelines quickly, like popcorn popping.

1. Guideline Charades: Split into groups. Each group acts out a guideline without talking. Everyone else guesses which one it is.

1. Two Truths and One Lie:
2. Truth 1: A large (30 oz.) sweet tea has as much sugar as two candy bars.
3. Truth 2: A large order of fries is one of the unhealthiest snacks. It has almost 1,500 calories and 71 grams of fat.
4. Lie: Fast food is much cheaper than groceries. One fast food meal costs about $7. For a family of four, that's about $28. But you could buy a whole chicken and vegetables at the store and feed the same family for half that price!

1. Talk or write about these questions:
2. How often do you eat fast food or junk food? What do you eat? Where?
3. Why do people eat junk food and fast food a lot?
4. What healthier choices can you make at fast food places?
5. What are some healthy snacks you could pick instead?

What You'll Need

• Worksheets
• A slide show
• A piece of fruit and a fruit-flavored food (or pictures of both)
• A big nutrition label (on a slide, poster, or board)
• A picture showing an old label next to a new label
• 18 blank cards
• 8 food packages or pictures of food labels
• Paper

Words to Know

• Nutrition: Eating the right foods so your body can be healthy and grow.
• Serving Size: A set amount of food, like a cup, used to measure calories and nutrients.
• Calorie: A unit that measures how much energy is in food or drink, and how much energy your body uses.
• Cholesterol: A substance found in animal foods. Your body uses it to make certain things it needs, like hormones.
• Sodium: Found in salt. Your body needs a little bit for healthy nerves and muscles.
• Fiber: A part of plants that your body can't digest. It helps you feel full and helps you go to the bathroom.
• Sugar: A simple sweet substance found naturally in foods, like the sugar in milk or fruit.
• Added Sugar: Sugar or syrup added to food to make it sweeter. This is different from sugar that is already naturally in fruit or milk.
• Vitamins/Minerals: Nutrients from plants and animals that help keep your immune system strong.
• Daily Value: A percentage that shows how much of a nutrient is in a food, based on eating 2,000 calories a day.
• Ingredient List: A list of everything in a food, starting with the ingredient there is the most of.

Let's Get Started

Answer this question, either by writing or talking out loud:

Pretend you just won the lottery. What would you do with all that money?

Here's something to think about: Even if we bought a lottery ticket every day, we can't control if we win. We can't control everything in life. But we CAN control some things about our health. If we build healthy habits now, they will help us later too.

Why Do Foods Have Labels?

What does "nutrition" mean? It means giving your body the food it needs to live and grow.

Some foods give your body better fuel than others. How can we tell which foods are best? By reading the nutrition label!

Think about this: if you were blindfolded, would you eat something without knowing what it was? Probably not! That's why it's important to read labels — so you know exactly what you're eating.

Try This:
Look at a real piece of fruit and a fruit-flavored food (like a strawberry next to strawberry ice cream, or an apple next to apple cereal).

Why does one have a label and the other doesn't?

Whole foods — like fruits and vegetables — don't need labels. That's because they only have one ingredient: themselves! What are the ingredients in an apple? Just... apple!

Other foods have labels because they are either:

1. Packaged, or
2. Changed from their natural form (processed)

Can you name other whole foods? Some examples are broccoli, cabbage, lettuce, bananas, oranges, eggs, plain pork meat, and salmon.

Let's Decode a Nutrition Label

How many of you have read a nutrition label before? It might look tricky, but we can break it into small parts to understand the whole thing.

Look at a big nutrition label. Here's what each part means:

• "Start here" — this points to the Serving Size.
• "Check calories" — this points to the Calories.
• "Limit these nutrients" — look for Trans Fat, Cholesterol, and Sodium. For these, do you want the % Daily Value to be low or high? Low!
• "Get enough of these nutrients" — look for fiber, vitamins, and minerals. For these, do you want the % Daily Value to be low or high? High!
• 5% or less is a low amount. 20% or more is a high amount.
• The Ingredient List goes from the most (greatest) to the least amount.

(Fat, Carbohydrates, and Protein are special nutrients called macronutrients. We'll learn more about those in another lesson called "Mighty Macronutrients.")

Old Labels vs. New Labels

In 2016, a group called the FDA made a new nutrition label for packaged foods. They wanted to make it easier for people to choose healthy foods. This change is happening slowly. By 2020, most food companies had to use the new label.

What changed, and why?

• Serving size is now bigger and bolder. This makes it easier to notice.
• Serving sizes were updated to match how much people actually eat and drink today. Some serving sizes got bigger, some got smaller — because the law says labels must show what people really eat, not what they should eat.
• Calories are shown in bigger letters, so they're easier to see.
• "Calories from fat" was removed. Studies show the type of fat matters more than the amount.
• A new "added sugars" section was added. This helps people see how much sugar was added to their food, so they can eat less of it.
• Daily values for sodium, fiber, and Vitamin D were updated based on new research.
• Vitamin D and potassium are now required on labels, because many people don't get enough of them.
• Vitamin A and C are no longer required, since it's rare for people to lack these vitamins today.
• Exact amounts of vitamins and minerals (not just percentages) are now shown, so it's easier to tell how much you're really getting.
• A new note was added to better explain what "% Daily Value" means.

Matching Game

Here's how to set up a matching activity:

• Get 18 cards or pieces of paper.
• On one side, write a label like "1a" or "1b." On the other side, write either a term or its definition.
• Split the cards into two piles: (a) terms and (b) definitions.
• Hand out the cards before class, or hide them under chairs.
• Each student who gets a card is in charge of reading it and finding its match during the activity.