Most packaged foods have a Nutrition Facts label. For a healthier you, use this tool to make smart food choices quickly and easily.
Try these tips:
•Keep these low: saturated fats,transfats, cholesterol, and sodium.
• Get enough of these: potassium, fiber, vitamins A and C, calcium, and iron.
• Use the % Daily Value (DV) column when possible: 5% DV or less is low, 20% DV or more is high.
Check servings and calories. Look at the serving size and how many servings you are actually consuming. If you double the servings you eat, you double the calories and nutrients, including the % DVs.
Make your calories count. Look at the calories on the label and compare them with what nutrients you are also getting to decide whether the food is worth eating. When one serving of a single food item has over 400 calories per serving, it is high in calories.
Don’t sugarcoat it. Since sugars contribute calories with few, if any, nutrients, look for foods and beverages low in added sugars. Read the ingredient list and make sure that added sugars are not one of the first few ingredients. Some names for added sugars (caloric sweeteners) include sucrose, glucose, high fructose corn syrup, corn syrup, maple syrup, and fructose.
Know your fats. Look for foods low in saturated fats,transfats, and cholesterol to help reduce the risk of heart disease (5% DV or less is low, 20% DV or more is high). Most of the fats you eat should be polyunsaturated and monounsaturated fats. Keep total fat intake between 20% to 35% of calories.
Reduce sodium (salt), increase potassium. Research shows that eating less than 2,300 milligrams of sodium (about 1 tsp of salt) per day may reduce the risk of high blood pressure. Most of the sodium people eat comes from processed foods, not from the saltshaker. Also look for foods high in potassium, which counteracts some of sodium’s effects on blood pressure.
The Surgeon General of the
Public Health Service
Washington DC 20201 MESSAGE FROM THE SURGEON GENERALI am pleased to transmit to the Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services this first Surgeon General's Report on Nutrition and Health. It was prepared under the auspices of the Department's Nutrition Policy Board, and its main conclusion is that overconsumption of certain dietary components is now a major concern for Americans. While many food factors are involved, chief among them is the disproportionate consumption of foods high in fats, often at the expense of foods high in complex carbohydrates and fiber--such as vegetables, fruits, and whole grain products--that may be more conducive to health. I offer this Report in the context of the obligation of the Surgeon General to inform the American public of developments in the science base that have widespread implications for human health.
One of such reports is the one issued in 1964 during the tenure of one of my predecessors, Dr. Luther Terry, which summarized the epidemiologic evidence available at the time on the relationship of tobacco to health. This report called attention to the inescapable conclusion that cigarettes were a major source of illness and death for those who smoked-at that time a majority of adult men. This Surgeon General's Report on Nutrition and Health follows the tradition of the original report on smoking and health. It addresses an area of some controversy and substantial misunderstanding. And the relative magnitude of the associated health concerns is comparable, with dietary factors playing a prominent role in five of the ten leading causes of death for Americans. In addition, the depth of the science base underlying its findings is even more impressive than that for tobacco and health in 1964, with animal and clinical evidence adding to the epidemiologic studies. On the other hand here are some fundamental differences. Most obvious is the fact that food is necessary for good health. Foods contain nutrients essential for normal metabolic function, and when problems arise, they result from imbalance in nutrient intake or from harmful interaction with other factors. Moreover, we know today much more about individual variation in response to nutrients than we know about possible variations in response to tobacco. Some people are clearly more susceptible than others to problems from diets that are, for example, higher in fat or salt. Also, unlike the experience for tobacco in 1964, people are already making dietary changes, as witnessed by the shift to products lower in saturated fats. Nonetheless, the important effects of the dietary factors underlying problems like coronary heart disease, high blood pressure, stroke, some types of cancer, diabetes, obesity--problems that represent the leading health threats for Americans--indicate the potential for substantial gains to be accrued by the recommendations contained in this Report It is important to emphasize that the focus of this Report is primarily on the relationship of diet to the occurrence of chronic diseases. The Report is not intended to address the problems of hunger or undernutrition that may occur in the United States among certain subgroups of the population. All Americans should have access to an appropriate diet, but they do not. And even though the size and numbers of problems related to inadequate access to food are proportionately much smaller than those related to dietary excesses and imbalances, the problems of access to food are of considerable concern to me, personally, wherever they may occur. The apparently sizable numbers of people resorting to the use of soup kitchens and related food facilities, as well as the possible role of poor diet as a contributor to the higher infant mortality rates associated with inadequate income, suggest the need for better monitoring of the nature and extent of the problem and for sustained efforts to correct the underlying causes of diminished health due to inadequate or inappropriate diets. This report was prepared primarily for nutritional policy makers, although the eventual beneficiaries of better nutritional policy will be the American people. I am convinced that with a concerted effort on the part of policy makers throughout the Nation, and eventually by the public, our daily diets can bring a substantial measure of better health to all Americans. I commend to them the recommendations of this Report. C. Everett Koop, M.D., Sc.D.
Surgeon General
U.S. Public Health Service
