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| Reading Food Labels |
If you want to develop some healthy eating habits or improve your diet, try doing some
light reading at the grocery store. Reaching and maintaining a healthy weight means
eating smart. You need to know what is in the food you eat and until recently that
has not always been so easy. Now you can look for nutrition information on products with
the introduction of two types of nutrition labelling in Singapore.
The first is the Nutrition Information Panel (NIP) which gives you information on nutrient
content of the food item based on a specific serving size. They are required on most packaged
foods such as cereals, canned goods, crackers, cookies, etc. NIP have been available on
imported products for a while now, particularly those from the United States, Australia
and Europe. Thus you will find various NIP formats depending on where the product is
imported from. Singapore introduced the nutrition information panel for locally manufactured
products in 1998 to be in line with the worldwide food labelling trends.
The most common NIP you will see in the store is that from the US (55%) shown here on the
bottom left. Products carrying the Singapore NIP accounts for only 5% of the products
based on a survey conducted in 1999.
The second type of nutrition labelling you can look for is the Healthier Choice Symbol (HCS)
seen here on the right. The Healthier Choice Symbol is put on food products that meet the
nutritional standards
set by the Singapore National Heart Association. The primary objective of the Healthier
Choice Label Programme is to highlight healthier selections for each food category. Some
examples of food products tha carry the HCS are hi-lo or low-fat milk, wholemeal and high
fibre breads, tofu and soya milk, and certain types of cooking oils such as canola and soya
bean oil.
A supermarket survey was conducted in 1999 by the Department of Nutrition, Ministry of Health
to determine the knowledge, attitude and use of nutrition information by shoppers and the
availability of nutrition information on food labels.
Three-quarters (76%) of the shoppers read food labels. Of these, the majority was able
to use the Nutrition Information Panel (NIP) to determine the nutrient content of a
product (70%) and to compare between two similar products (59%). The most commonly read
nutrients on the NIP were total fat (73%) and cholesterol (69%). The younger shoppers
tend to look at information on calories and protein, while the middle-aged were more
interested in the total fat and dietary fibre contents, and the over fifties in the
cholesterol and sodium values.
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Nutrition Information Panel
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All nutrition information panel contain similar information no matter which country they
are from. They contain information on the number of serving per package, serving size for
which the nutrients are listed, and the nutrient listing. The US NIP also contains information
on the percent of Reference Daily Intake (RDI) for 4 nutrients namely vitamin A, vitamin C,
calcium and iron. So in the sample shown on the left, you can see that each serving provides
80% of RDI for vitamin A, 60% for vitamin C and 4% each for calcium and iron.
The US panel also includes the recommended amount of fat, saturated fat, cholesterol, sodium,
carbohydrate, and dietary fibre for a 2000 calorie diet ie. less than 65 grams fat, less than
20 grams of saturated fat, etc.
Serving Sizes
It is important to note the serving size that is given as it is often a lot less than what
you would normally eat, for example the nutrient content could be given for 1/2 cup cereal or
1 cookie. So if you eat 1-1/2 cups of cereal or 3 cookies, you have to multiply the calories,
fat, etc. by a factor of 3.
Nutrient Listing
In the Singapore NIP, the 'core list' includes the following nutrients:
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- Energy
- Protein
- Total fat
- Saturated fat
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- Cholesterol
- Carbohydrate (excluding dietary fibre;
- Dietary fibre and
- Sodium
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| The US panel also includes calories from fat and amount of sugars present. |
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