Introduction
Providing our bodies with proper nourishment is not determined by the food choices we make for one day but the food-intake pattern we develop based on the food selections made for all the foods/meals eaten each day over a period of months, even years. These choices are impacted by various factors including tradition, culture, availability, religion, economics, and nutritional value. Even though nutritional value may not always be the primary motivating factor that determines what is selected, ultimately it is the most important because there is much truth to the old adage "we are what we eat." We need to eat food to supply the nutrients that the body needs to sustain life and maintain health.
• The U.S. government sets standards to ensure that the information on food labels is accurate and reliable. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) defines the words that can be used on a label to describe the nutrient content of a product.
• Food labels provide nutrition information to help consumers choose foods to meet their nutrient needs.
• These numbers of servings recommenced to be consumed each day by the Food Guide Pyramid servings is based on scientific research and expert recommendations.
• The FDA established the serving sizes used on food labels. These serving sizes are based on amounts people normally eat. They are consistent across product lines.
• Consumers should always pay attention to how the actual amount of the food being consumed compares to the serving size of that food as indicated on the food label.
Essential Question
How do you read a nutritional label?
Objectives
To enable students to:
1. Interpret and understand the food and nutrition on food labels
2. Determine their nutrient needs and how understanding food labels can help them to meet those needs.
Procedure
Answer all questions for 3 nutritional labels
Student Work
Complete the following questions for 3 food lables of your choice.
1. List the grams of carbohydrate, protein, and fat per serving size of this product.
2. List the caloric density per gram weight for carbohydrate, protein, and fat.
3. Calculate the number of calories in a serving size that come from carbohydrate, protein, and fat of this food product.
4. What are the total number of calories in a serving size of this food product that you calculated ( your numbers will be slightly different than the value presented on the label).
5. Is this a low fat food product?
6. Would the label lead you to believe that this product is only 3% fat? Is that true? (This is why it is important for you to calculate fat calories).
ACTIVITY -FOOD LABELS
STUDENT WORKSHEET
Remember that an important recommendation, Example: especially
for Americans, is to keep the percent of calories from fat less than or equal to 30%.
To find the percent of calories from fat:
1) Divide the calories
from
fat by the total 1) calories from fat 30
number of calories. total calories 220
2) Multiply by 100 to change the decimal 2) 0.1363636 x 100 = 13.63636
into a percent. 0.1363636 = 13.63636%
3) Round to the nearest whole
percent.
3) 13.63636% = 14%
REFRIED BEANS
1. How much is one serving of beans? _____
2. How many calories
are
in one serving of beans? _____
3. How many calories
from
fat are in one serving of beans? _____
4. Find the percent of calories
from
fat in these beans. _____
5. How many calories
are
in one cup of beans? _____
6. What is the serving size of the peanut butter sandwich crackers? _____
7. How many calories
are
in one serving of crackers? _____
8. How many calories
from
fat are in one serving of crackers? _____
9. Find the percent of calories
from
fat in the crackers. _____
10. If there are six crackers per package, how many calories in one cracker? _____
Assessment
Assessment will be achieved through a lab quiz, grading of lab activity and/or observation of lab work in class.
Materials and Resources
food labels
Duration
1 period
