Shopping for Healthy Snacks? Check These 3 Key Nutrients

You want to buy healthy snacks or food items during your shopping trip, but you're intimidated by the long list on the nutrition label. We're here to help. Pay attention to these three key nutrients and you can quickly filter out the products you don't want to buy.

1. Fat

Especially trans and saturated fat. These are the first things worth looking at when you skim a nutrition label. Fat matters for taste, but you want it as low as the product will reasonably allow.

2. Sugar

Sugar hides in savoury products too, not just sweets. Check the grams per serving, then check how many servings you'd actually eat.

3. Salt (sodium)

Sodium is the third of the trio. Snack foods are frequently where most of a day's sodium comes from.

Read the %DV — and adjust for your real portion

You're looking for the %DV (percent daily value) and the portion size. Whatever portion size is printed on the label, adjust it for what you'd typically eat in a day. For example, a chocolate bar may give nutrition information for ten squares. But if you usually eat no more than five squares, divide everything by two to see whether it fits your daily goals.

When two products from different brands look identical, use these three key nutrients to decide which one to choose.

You should still look at the other nutrients on the label. But most items on a grocery shelf carry too much fat, sugar or sodium — so this lets you skip past a large number of products and spend your time on the ones that actually suit your health requirements.

You can read more about the health effects of fat at Health Canada.

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