Food Label Meanings

There is a lot more than the label tells.



1. Imitation is a food that looks like another food but isn’t made of the same stuff. A food only has to be labeled as imitation if it has a lower amount of protein or some other essential nutrient than the food it’s trying to look like. Natural?

How to Understand and Use the Nutrition Facts Label (wiki)

FDA Labeling - What Labels should tell you - What Labels don't tell you

Food is not just the sum of its nutrients. It is time to rethink nutrition labeling

Food Labeling Requirements - Food Testing Laboratory

Scio is a Pocket Molecular Sensor that Tells You What's Really in the Food like calories, and sugar and fat.

2. Free. If it’s free of fat, or sugar, or Salt, it doesn’t mean that not one trace of those things is to be found in it. The FDA evaluates certain terms with reference to a typical portion size known as an RACC (reference amounts customarily consumed per eating occasion). An RACC of eggnog, for example, is ½ cup. For croutons, it’s 7 grams, and for scrambled eggs, 100 grams. To be labeled “free” of calories, the food must have less than 5 per RACC. For fat and sugar, less than .5 grams. For sodium, less than 5 milligrams. Also, the food must somehow be processed to be “free” of those things in order to get the simple “free” label. You can’t have “fat free lettuce,” only “lettuce, a fat free food.” Grocery Labels Explained - Info-Graph.

3. Low. Low is also defined with respect to set portion sizes and varies with whether it refers to calories, fat, or sodium. For fat it’s less than 3 grams. For calories, it’s less than 40, unless it’s a prepared meal, in which case it’s 120 per 100 grams. Saturated fat and cholesterol have specific “low” values as well. Processed Food Dangers.

4. Reduced/less. Sometimes manufacturers want to make a relational claim about a food—not just that it’s “low” in some substance, but lower than it usually is (which may mean it doesn’t meet the standard for “low” at all). Relational claims are evaluated with respect to a reference food. A reference food should be the same type of food (chocolate ice cream compared to other chocolate ice cream) though the numbers against which the “reduced” claims are compared can be an average of the top three brands. The “reduced” substance must be less than 25 percent of what it is in the reference food.

5. Light. Light (or lite) is also evaluated with respect to a reference food, and a rather complicated set of conditions is taken into account for different substances. For example, if a “light” product has more than half of its calories from fat, the fat must be reduced by half per reference serving amount. If less than half its calories come from fat, it can be “light” if the calories per serving are reduced by 1/3. Sometimes foods that meet “low” requirements can also be labeled as “light.” “Lightly salted” should have 50 percent less sodium than a reference food.

6. High. Our food labels don’t only brag about low levels of the bad stuff, but also about high levels of the good stuff. “High” (or “rich in”) means that the food has 20 percent or more of the recommended daily value for that nutrient per reference serving.

7. Good source. “Good source of” is a little lower than “high.” A food with this label should have 10 to 19 percent of the recommended daily value.

8. More. Below “good source” is “more,” “fortified,” “enriched,” “added,” “extra,” or “plus.” A food with 10 percent of the recommended daily value can use one of these, but it only applies for vitamins, minerals, protein, fiber, and potassium.

9. Lean. “Lean” applies to seafoods or meats that have less than combined specified levels of fat, saturated fat, and cholesterol (10g, 4.5g, and 95mg, respectively).

10. Healthy. To qualify as “healthy,” a product must meet the “low” standard for fat and saturated fat, another standard for sodium and cholesterol, and it must have at least 10 percent of the recommended daily value for a range of nutrients.

11. Natural. After years soliciting suggestions and considering comments on the question of what “Natural” should mean, no useful consensus could be reached, and the FDA decided to forgo establishing an official definition. Though it hasn’t issued rules for the use of “natural,” it endorses the general understanding that it implies nothing artificial or synthetic has been added that would not normally be expected to be added. 

Natural Ingredient - Food Additives - What Does Organic Mean?

Natural Foods are widely used terms in food labeling and marketing with a variety of definitions, most of which are vague. The term is often assumed to imply foods that are not processed and whose ingredients are all natural products (in the chemist's sense of that term), thus conveying an appeal to nature. But the lack of standards in most jurisdictions means that the term assures nothing. In some countries, the term “natural” is defined and enforced. In others, such as the United States, it is not enforced. Natural does not automatically imply that something is safe. Food Safety.

Natural is something existing in nature or produced by nature naturally on its own. Natural is something that is not artificial or an imitation or man made, and neither made up nor magical. Something that can be observed in the world that happens naturally or is caused by things that can be explained to a certain degree. Things in life that seem to be functioning or occurring in a normal way and are lacking abnormalities or deficiencies that would go against an accordance with nature. Natural causes may vary when the truth is not known or debated.

Naturally is something happening in a normal way or in a inherent manner that is usually expected according to the rules of nature or according to the laws of physics. Something happening naturally without artificial help or as the result of randomness.

Food Fraud is the deliberate mislabeling of food products for financial gain with the intent of deceiving the consumer regarding what is actually in the package. The United States Pharmacopeial Convection reports that these acts of fraud have increased by 60 percent over the last year alone. Food Allergy.

Food Fraud Database - Mislabeled Medications - Mislabeled Products

Seafood Mislabeling is when seafood species can be mislabeled in misleading ways. Selling low quality fish that is labeled as being a high quality fish. Fish Fraud (ocean protection) - False Advertising - Ponzi Scheme.

Food Additives - Natural Selection - Holistic Foods

Serving Size is an important factor in your diet. You should compare the amount of that food you normally eat to the serving size listed on the label. Eating large servings or portions can lead to weight gain. The larger your portions are, the more calories you eat. How to Understand and Use the Nutrition Facts Label.

Expired Food - Expiration Dates

What is the difference between Peak Quality and the Expiration Date? - Food Safety

Best By Date refers to the date recommended that you use the product by for best physical and/or sensory quality. It is not an expiration date. Sell By Date on a product is the items expiration date, the end of its shelf life at the store. Although the food product may be used and enjoyed past this date, it is not recommended to purchase a product if the Sell By date has past. This date is not as common as a best-by date.

Expiration Date is a previously determined date after which something should no longer be used, either by operation of law or by exceeding the anticipated shelf life for perishable goods. Expiration dates are applied to selected food products and to some other manufactured products like infant car seats where the age of the product may impact its safe use. The dates solely indicate freshness, and are used by manufacturers to convey when the product is at its peak. That means the food does not expire in the sense of becoming inedible. For un-refrigerated foods, there may be no difference in taste or quality, and expired foods won't necessarily make people sick.

Food Waste - Food Preserving - Food Chemistry

Two types of product dating may be shown on a product label. "Open Dating" is a calendar date applied to a food product by the manufacturer or retailer. The calendar date provides consumers with information on the estimated period of time for which the product will be of best quality and to help the store determine how long to display the product for sale. “Closed Dating” is a code that consists of a series of letters and/or numbers applied by manufacturers to identify the date and time of production.

"Labels do not say that we have completely defined something, it's more of a temporary marker until we have more information."

FDA Regulates 80% of our Food, but it is easily corrupted and exploited.

Why nobody knows what's really going into your Food (youtube) 

Generally Recognized as Safe is a designation that a chemical or substance added to food is considered safe by experts, and so is exempted from the usual Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act (FFDCA) food additive tolerance requirements. The concept of food additives being "generally recognized as safe" was first described in the Food Additives Amendment of 1958, and all additives introduced after this time had to be evaluated by new standards. - GRAS.

Companies have added thousands of ingredients to foods with little to no government oversight. That's thanks to a loophole in a decades-old law that allows them to deem an additive to be "generally recognized as safe" — or GRAS — without the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's blessing, or even its knowledge.

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Potassium Bromate (wiki)

Meanings - Labels - Translation - Interpret.