Reading the label
How to read a food label in ten seconds
Reading the label
The short answer
Read the ingredients list before the nutrition panel, and read only the first three. Ingredients are listed by weight, so the first three are substantially what the product is. If sugar, a syrup or a refined oil appears there, that is what you are buying, whatever the front of the pack says.
The front of a packet is advertising. The back is regulated. Almost everything useful is on the back, and most of it can be read in the time it takes to pick the box up.
I have spent years reading these professionally, both as a chef sourcing ingredients and when supplying health shops. The shortcuts below are what I actually use in a supermarket, not a theoretical framework.
Ingredients are listed in descending order by weight. This is a legal requirement, not a convention. It means the first three ingredients make up the large majority of what is in your hand.
The first three ingredients are the product.
Everything after that is a rounding errorA granola whose second ingredient is sugar is a dessert. A wholemeal loaf whose first ingredient is wheat flour rather than wholemeal flour is a white loaf with colouring. A smoothie whose first ingredient is apple juice concentrate is a sugary drink with fruit in the name.
You do not need to read further than three to know most of what matters.
Manufacturers know about the weight-ordering rule. One response is to split sugar across several named forms so that no single one ranks high enough to appear near the top.
Watch for glucose syrup, fructose, dextrose, maltose, invert sugar, molasses, fruit juice concentrate, agave, honey, rice syrup and barley malt extract. If three of those appear separately in one list, mentally add them together, and the picture changes.
Use the per 100g column, not per portion. Portion sizes are chosen by the manufacturer and are frequently optimistic. Per 100g is the only figure that lets you compare two products honestly.
It sounds fussy written down. In practice it takes about as long as reading a price label, and after a fortnight you stop noticing you are doing it.
Turn the pack over and read only the first three ingredients. They are listed by weight, so they make up the majority of the product. If sugar, a syrup or a refined oil appears among them, that tells you most of what you need to know.
UK law requires ingredients to be listed in descending order by weight. So the first item is the largest component, and the first three together are substantially what the product is.
Very little. There is no meaningful legal definition for most uses of the word, which is why it appears so freely. Organic, by contrast, is genuinely regulated and certified.
Per 100g. Portion sizes are set by the manufacturer and are often unrealistically small, which makes the per-portion figures look better. Per 100g is the only fair way to compare products.
In UK traffic light terms, above 22.5g per 100g is high and below 5g per 100g is low. Watch also for sugar split across several names, which keeps any single one from appearing near the top of the list.