Why do you refer to food labels when preparing meals?

Well, ofcource...I mean, how can you order food without its label? Does that mean no restuarants?! Cause I am really fond of **!

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Food labelling regulations depend on the country you live in. Labels in my country have a section listing ingredients with the biggest quantity first; for example, shortbread might list "flour, butter, sugar, salt", so you know there is more flour than butter, more butter than sugar, more sugar than salt in the cookies. Other products might list flavours, colours, and so on. If these are artificial, they'll have numbers. There could also be a panel listing separate quantities of fats, carbohydrates (with sugar listed separately) and so on, usually both per serve and per 100g. So, if the label shows 12.0g sugar per 100g, that means the food contains 12 per cent sugar.

This kind of labelling is very useful; it helps you identify what ingredients in a product might be something you are allergic to, for example, and also shows you what kind of value for money you're getting. So, there might be two brands of coconut cream on the shelf; one lists ingredients as coconut kernel extract (100 per cent) while the other might list coconut (50 per cent), water, sugar, salt, and so on. The second can might seem cheaper until you work out you're only getting half as much coconut, plus other ingredients you don't want or need! Check out fruit drinks and see which ones actually contain fruit, and how much - you could, again, be buying a lot of water with a little fruit, and think you're saving money! And when products have labels suggesting they're "healthy" you can look and see what percentage fat and/or sugar is in there - you could be in for a surprise.

I recently checked out guacamole dips in the supermarket. The avocado content ranged between brands from over 30 per cent to only 1 per cent . The rest was just fillers, stabilizers, emulsifiers, colours, flavouring, and so on. You'd be much better off to MASH up an avocado!

When preparing a meal it's useful to check label ingredients such as salt and sugar: if the product contains these, you might need to think about how much you add to what you're cooking so you don't end up with something too salty or too sweet.

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