What should you look for?

Check for fats, protein and carbohydrates

Fats, protein and carbohydrates all provide your body with the energy (kilojoules or kilocalories) you need to function and perform your daily activities. When comparing similar foods, lower energy usually means lower fat or sugar, so the food is a better choice.

Did you know?

100 calories in a bowl of spinach come with lots of nutrients and fibre that will help fill you up, the 100 calories in one-third of a muffin have few nutrients, and are “empty” calories.

Watch out for hidden ingredients

Food manufacturers can list fat, sugar or salt content under different names, depending on the ingredient used in the product. This means that these food components might seem ‘hidden’ on the ingredient list, and go by different names – but whatever they’re called, high fat, sugar and salt content generally means the food is less healthy.

Watch out for different names for fat:

Fat can go by many names for example: butter, beef fat, dripping, lard, milk fat, cream, vegetable oil, vegetable fat, peanut oil (or other nut oil), monoglycerides, transfats and hydrogenated fat. Remember, the type of fat matters more than the amount of fat - healthy oils contain beneficial poly- and monounsaturated fat. Hydrogenated fats are very harmful to the body so look out for these in ingredients lists. Transfats can equally be very bad for your health.

Watch out for different names for sugar:

Sugar can be described by many different names including sucrose, glucose, glucose syrup, fructose, glucose-fructose syrup, maltose, maltodextrin, invert sugar, golden syrup, maple syrup, molasses and honey. Food manufacturers use this to their advantage by purposely adding many different types of sugar to their products to hide the actual amount, according to Healthline. In doing so, they can list a healthier ingredient at the top, mentioning sugar further down.

So even though a product may be loaded with sugar, it doesn’t necessarily appear as one of the first three ingredients. Have a look to see if you can find hidden sugars on your next visit to the shops. If the first ingredient on the label is sugar, then you can conclude that product contains mostly sugar.

Watch out for different names for salt:

Salt too can be listed as baking powder, garlic salt, sodium, meat or yeast extract, onion salt, rock salt, sea salt, sodium bicarbonate, sodium metabisulphite, sodium nitrate, nitrate or stock cubes.

Did you know?

Studies have found that transfats significantly increase your risk of heart disease because the cholesterol collects in the walls of your blood vessels, and can cause blockages.