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)

• Cigarette/tobacco smoke ? Cigarette smoking is the biggest risk factor for sudden cardiac death. Smokers? risk of heart attack is more than twice that of nonsmokers. Giving up smoking
• High blood cholesterol levels ? The risk of coronary artery disease rises as blood cholesterol levels increase. When other risk factors (such as high blood pressure and cigarette smoke) are present, this risk increases even more. Healthy eating
• High blood pressure ? High blood pressure increases the heart?s workload, causing it to enlarge and weaken over time. It also increases the risk of stroke, heart attack, kidney failure and congestive heart failure. When someone with high blood pressure is overweight, smokes, has high blood cholesterol levels or diabetes, the risk of heart attack increases several times.
• Physical inactivity ? Even modest levels of low-intensity physical activity are beneficial if done regularly and long term. Exercise can help control blood cholesterol, diabetes and obesity as well as help to lower blood pressure. Exercise
• Obesity ? People with an excessive amount of body fat are more likely to develop heart disease even if they have no other risk factors. Excess weight increases the strain on the heart; it influences blood pressure and cholesterol, and can lead to diabetes. Healthy eating
• Stress ? Scientists have noted a relationship between coronary heart disease and chronic stress. Stress reduction
• Substance abuse ? People with a history of substance abuse, particularly cocaine and alcohol abuse place themselves at risk for heart disease.

Omega-3 from fish oil safely lowers the need for pain killers e.g. Aspirin and they slash ’triglycerides’ (high blood fats).

2 grams/day of fish oil after heart attack: 20% fewer deaths and 45% fewer ’sudden’ deaths. Omega-3 is the rediscovered half of what used to be called vitamin F -with the F from Fat.

It takes omega-3 to balance the other half of vitamin F, the omnipresent omega-6 from soy, corn, sunflower, safflower and cottonseed, Linoleic Acid (LA). Polyunsaturate has become synonymous with omega-6 only, which now appears to be part of a health disaster in heart disease, diabetes and cancer, especially breast cancer, excessive blood clotting and immune system problems including asthma.

Making things worse since 1911, hydrogenation trans-forms unsaturates and messes with their vitamin or structural roles while raising bad-boy Lp(a). Hydrogenation preferentially zaps the most precious oil of all: omega-3. Virgin olive is a healthy omega-9 oil but a poor source of omega-3 at only 0.6%.

Oily fish is undoubtedly good for us and should be included in the diet. Eating a varied diet of fresh, unprocessed food is always better than thinking that food with supplements will make up for basic deficiencies.

Given that one portion of salmon or mackerel, sardines or fresh (not canned) tuna a week should provide us with enough of the omega-3 we need, we as consumers should all make more effort to eat more oily fish – within FSA guidelines – rather than to reassure ourselves by buying (often expensive) products with added omega-3.

DISCLAIMER: The information and advice contained in this article are intended as a general guide to healthy eating and are not specific to individuals or their particular circumstances. All content within this article is provided for general information only, and should not be treated as a substitute for the medical advice of your own doctor or any other health care professional. The Szivorvos/Cardiologist Pécs is not responsible or liable for any diagnosis made by a user based on the content of the Szivorvos/Cardiologist Pécs website. The Szivorvos/Cardiologist Pécs is not liable for the contents of any external internet sites listed, nor does it endorse any commercial product or service mentioned or advised on any of the sites. Always consult your own GP if you’re in any way concerned about your health.

Day and night, the muscles of your heart contract and relax to pump blood throughout your body. When blood returns to the heart, it follows a complicated pathway. If you were in the bloodstream, you would follow the steps below one by one.

Oxygen-poor blood (shown in blue) flows from the body into the right atrium. Blood flows through the right atrium into the right ventricle. The right ventricle pumps the blood to the lungs, where the blood releases waste gases and picks up oxygen. The newly oxygen-rich blood (shown in red) returns to the heart and enters the left atrium. Blood flows through the left atrium into the left ventricle. The left ventricle pumps the oxygen-rich blood to all parts of the body.

Do right and left seem backward? That’s because you’re looking at an illustration of somebody else’s heart. To think about how your own heart works, imagine wearing this illustration on your chest.

Did you know that your heart beats over 100,000 times a day ?

(From NOVA Online)

When you are dealing with a complex health condition like heart disease, it is important that you find the right match between you and your specialist.

A diagnosis of heart or vascular disease often begins with your primary care doctor, who then refers you to a cardiologist. The cardiologist evaluates your symptoms and your medical history and may recommend tests for a more definite diagnosis. Then, your cardiologist decides if your condition can be managed under his or her care using medicines or other available treatments.
If your cardiologist decides that you need surgery, he or she refers you to a cardiovascular surgeon, who specializes in operations on the heart. You remain under the care of your cardiologist even when you are referred to other specialists.

Cardiology is a complex field, so many cardiologists specialize in different areas. All cardiologists are clinical cardiologists who focus on the diagnosis, medical management (use of medicines), and prevention of cardiovascular disease. Some clinical cardiologists specialize in pediatric cardiology, which means they diagnose and treat heart problems in children. When clinical cardiologists treat only adult patients, they specialize in adult cardiology. Other clinical cardiologists may specialize in interventional procedures balloon angioplasty and stent placement), echocardiography, or electrophysiology.

Cardiologists at the ReMo Centrum at dr. Judit Keller research and develop techniques for treating heart and vascular diseases.