I wish you, your family and friends a Christmas that will be characterised by many moments of joy, as well as good health, prosperity and happiness in the new year.

Nutrition panels can be confusing, but if you know how to read them, they’re a useful source of information. Because we eat foods, not nutrients, it is important to look at the food as a whole rather than focusing on just the fat or just the kilojoules. Let’s take a closer look at this nutrition information panel for cereal bars.

Click on the links to the below to read more about the five main areas of nutrition panels:

Fats Salt Fibre Kilojoules Sugar To Tick Panel Top of Head
FATS

While fats are an essential part of your diet, too much unhealthy saturated fat or trans fat is something to be wary of. Fats are actually a nutrient your body needs to function properly – provided you choose the right ones. Instead of cutting all fats from your diet, make sure you eat less of the unhealthy fats (saturated and trans fats) and more of the healthier varieties (poly and mono unsaturated fats).

Sources of healthier and unhealthier fats

Mono-unsaturated and poly-unsaturated fats
? fish ? tahini ? margarine ? sunflower oil ? canola oil ? olive oil ? pine nuts ? walnuts ? brazil nuts ? almonds ? cashews ? peanuts ? macadamias ? avocados

Omega-3s
? tuna ? salmon ? sardines ? other oily fish ? walnuts ? pecans ? linseeds

Try these simple tips to increase your intake of the healthier fats

• add avocado and raw unsalted nuts to salads.
• sprinkle toasted almonds over breakfast cereal.
• switch to vegetable oils and margarine
• eat fresh, canned or frozen fish twice a week.

? sprinkle ground linseed on cereal

Saturated
? palm oil ? coconut milk ? coconut oil ? copha ? animal products such as meats with fat, poultry with skin and full fat dairy foods ? processed foods such as bought pastries and cakes ? many fast foods and takeaway meals

Trans fat
? trans fats can occur naturally at very low levels in some animal products such as beef, veal, lamb and mutton as well as full fat dairy foods
? industrially produced trans fats are also found in processed foods such as bought pastries and cakes

• many fast foods and takeaway meals

Easy ways to limit your intake of the unhealthier fats

• trimming all visible fat from meat before cooking
• removing skin from poultry
• opt for fat-reduced dairy foods

Fats Salt Fibre Kilojoules Sugar To Tick Panel Top of Head

SALT

Salt is listed on nutrition panels as sodium. Foods with less than 120mg per 100g are low in salt/sodium, while foods with more than 500mg are high in salt.

Salt is often used in packaged foods as a flavour enhancer or preservative. It is also used as a colour developer, binder, to add texture and as a fermentation control agent which means your salt intake can be high without you knowing it.

Reducing your sodium intake can be as easy as switching brands. Did you know that a ham and cheese sandwich can provide a four year old with more than one and a half times the amount of salt they need daily? Salty snack foods and takeaway meals encourage children to develop a taste for salty foods, so the healthy meals you cook for them at home may seem tasteless in comparison.

Choosing foods with the Heart Foundation Tick can help you stay on top of how much salt you and your family is eating.

The below table shows how much sodium is in two typical kids lunches and how much this contributes to their adequate daily intake (%AI). Figures are based on recommended levels of sodium for four to eight year olds (300mg-600mg/per day).

Fats Salt Fibre Kilojoules Sugar To Tick Panel Top of Head

FIBRE

Found in a range of different foods, dietary fibre is a nutrient your body needs to function properly, especially bowel health.

Adults should aim to eat 25 to 30 grams of dietary fibre every day, from a wide variety of foods such as wholegrain breads such as mixed grain, rye, sour dough and wholemeal cereals like oats, bulgur wheat, and pearl barley, fruit, vegetables, legumes and pulses such as lentils and chickpeas.

Children aged between four and eight need a minimum of 18g of fibre each day.

This example shows how an adult can meet the required daily fibre needs.

Daily fibre plan

• 3/4 cup bran flake cereal = 4.5g
• 2 slices wholemeal bread = 4.5g
• 1 apple and 1 orange = 5.5g
• 2 cups mixed raw vegetables = 10g
• 1/4 cup baked beans = 3g

TOTAL = 27.5g

If your current diet is low in fibre, you will need to build up your intake gradually. Suddenly consuming large amounts of fibre can produce an embarrassing but common side-effect – flatulence, also known as wind. To help prevent this problem, increase your intake slowly to allow your body to adapt. Beans, in particular, have a reputation for causing wind, especially those cooked from dried legumes. To stop them causing flatulence, soak them overnight before cooking them in fresh water.

Fats Salt Fibre Kilojoules Sugar To Tick Panel Top of Head

KILOJOULES

Kilojoules (kJ) are listed as energy on nutrition information panels. They work in much the same way for humans as petrol does for cars, by providing you with energy to ensure you can keep moving and going about your daily activities.

However, you need to ensure that the amount of kilojoules you consume is in balance with the amount of energy you expend through physical activity during the day. If you want to lose weight then the number of kilojoules you consume should be lower than the amount of exercise you do.

Make smart food choices by choosing foods that contain essential nutrients, plus a suitable amount of kilojoules. You don’t necessarily have to sacrifice the foods you enjoy eating, it comes down to making healthier choices. Changing the way you cook and prepare your meals can help too.

Be wary, a product described as „light” or „lite” may be lower in fat or sugar than other products but it may not be lower in kilojoules compared to a regular product. Read the nutrition information panel and compare similar products using the per serve and per 100g columns. When snacking, adults should choose snacks that contain no more than 600kJ. For children snacks should be up to 300kJ – that generally equates to one piece of fruit, one slice of bread or half a tub of yoghurt. Stick to one or two snacks a day.

Fats Salt Fibre Kilojoules Sugar To Tick Panel Top of Head

SUGAR

Most of us try to limit the amount of sugar we eat, especially when shopping for our children, so it’s not surprising that we become sceptical when a breakfast cereal with more than 25% sugar claims to be healthy.

What’s interesting however, is that a seemingly high sugar content doesn’t necessarily make a food ’bad’. It’s important to look at the food as a whole taking into account the other nutrients it contains.

A breakfast cereal, yoghurt or piece of fresh or dried fruit can be high in sugar but full of goodness. It’s the nutrient density that counts. Remember sugar occurs naturally in fruit and where low fat milk may have higher levels of sugar, you’re also getting the goodness of calcium.

Made up of mostly sugar or fat, a high-kilojoule chocolate bar or soft drink is rightly considered to be an unhealthier food because it’s also low in nutrients.

Fats Salt Fibre Kilojoules Sugar To Tick Panel Top of Head

(Source: National Heart Foundation of Australia)