Quick guide to % DV. The % DV section tells you the percent of each nutrient in a single serving, in terms of the daily recommended amount. As a guide, if you want to consume less of a nutrient (such as saturated fat, cholesterol or sodium), choose foods with a lower % DV — 5 percent or less is low. If you want to consume more of a nutrient (such as fiber), seek foods with a higher % DV — 20 percent or more is high.

Eating clean simply means to cut out the “bad” from your daily menu. “Bad” meaning foods that contain medium to high fats, high sodium, high sugar and simple carbohydrates. Keeping it clean means to load up on fiber, vegetables, proteins and good fats, low sodium and complex carbohydrates.   A good way to learn to eat clean is to not worry so much about what you shouldn’t eat and focus on what you should eat.

What does “sugars” mean in the Nutrition Facts panel?  “Sugar” refers to the family of simple carbohydrates that are found naturally in fruits, vegetables, grains and dairy products and that are added to foods as sweeteners. Naturally occurring and added sugars are identical. Whether you eat a banana or a banana nut muffin your body cannot tell which sugars were present in the fruit and which were added by the baker.

Total Carbohydrates:  Carbohydrates are good when they are the right kind.    Look at the total numbers of carbohydrates.  Carbohydrates are made up from two sources – Fiber and Sugar.  Carbohydrates made up from fiber are good.  These are the carbohydrates we want in our body.  The more fiber the better.  Fiber supplies us with vitamins and energy.  Fiber is great for your digestive system and helps keep you full longer because its slow digesting.  Eventually the fiber in your body is disposed out your digestive tract.  The second source of carbohydrate is from sugar.  Sugar has very little nutritional value.  The sugars that are stored in your body eventually convert to fat.  High sugar is related to many diseases, cancer and is the number one cause of diabetes. So it’s very important to keep the sugars low.

Look at your label.  The idea is to take the total carbohydrate number and see what the fiber content is.  You want the fiber to be high.  You deduct the fiber number from the total carbohydrate number.  The remaining number(s) should leave you within a close proximity to  sugars left over.   If the numbers don’t add up and there is still carbohydrates left after you deduct the fiber and sugar – those remaining are starches that haven’t been broken down.    The following  is an example:

You see this label breaks out TWO components of “total carbohydrates.”  One is sugar, and one is fiber.    The “countable”  carbs in these almonds is 2g per serving (5g total – 3g fiber).

Quick individuals will note that 1g sugar + 3g fiber does not equal 5g total carbs. That’s because starches are not broken out.

In addition to the Nutrition Facts label, a lot of foods today also come with nutrient content claims provided by the manufacturer. These claims are typically featured in ads for the foods or in the promotional copy on the food packages themselves. They are strictly defined by the FDA. The chart below provides some of the most commonly used nutrient content claims, along with a detailed description of what the claim means.