Nutrition labels are legally required to be there. But they're not designed to be easily understood - they're designed to comply with regulations. Understanding what you're actually looking at requires knowing a few tricks.
The Basics: What's On Every UK Label
UK law requires these values per 100g (and often per serving):
Typical Nutrition Information
The "per 100g" column lets you compare products easily. The "per serving" column is what you'll actually eat - but watch out for serving size manipulation.
The Traffic Light System
Many UK products use front-of-pack colour coding. Here's what the colours mean:
For a balanced diet, aim for more greens and ambers, fewer reds. But context matters - a meal with red for fat might be fine if it's unsaturated fat from olive oil.
🎯 What Actually Matters
For most people, focus on: protein (higher is usually better), saturated fat (lower is usually better), sugar (lower is usually better), and fibre if listed (higher is better). Everything else is secondary unless you have specific health goals.
The Serving Size Trick
⚠️ Watch Out
Manufacturers can choose their own serving sizes. A sharing bag of crisps might list nutrition "per 30g serving" - when the whole bag is 150g and most people eat it in one sitting. Always check what the serving size actually is.
Common serving size tricks:
- Cereal "portions" of 30g - Most people pour 50-60g
- Drinks "per 250ml" - When the bottle is 500ml
- Chocolate bars split into portions - Nobody eats half a Twix
- Ready meals "serves 2" - When it's clearly one person's dinner
The per 100g column never lies. Use it for honest comparisons.
The Ingredients List
Often more useful than the nutrition panel. Key things to know:
- Ingredients are listed by weight - First ingredient is the main one
- Sugar has many names - Glucose, fructose, maltose, dextrose, syrup, honey, agave, molasses... all sugar
- Long lists usually mean more processing - A chicken breast has one ingredient; chicken nuggets might have 30
- Numbers (E-numbers) aren't automatically bad - E300 is just vitamin C
What the Labels Don't Tell You
Nutrition labels have significant gaps:
No "processing level" indicator. A highly processed product with decent macros looks the same as a minimally processed one. The ingredient list is your only clue.
No quality information. "Protein: 25g" doesn't tell you if it's from quality chicken breast or processed meat paste.
Health claims can mislead. "High in protein" or "low fat" might be technically true while the overall product is poor quality. A doughnut could be "low in saturated fat" while still being junk food.
Micronutrients are often missing. Vitamins and minerals aren't always listed unless the product makes a claim about them.
A Practical Approach
Unless you have specific health conditions requiring careful tracking:
- Glance at per 100g for quick comparison
- Check protein - Aim for meals with 20g+ per serving
- Note saturated fat and sugar - Lower is generally better
- Scan the ingredients - Short list with recognisable items = less processed
- Don't obsess - A varied diet with mostly real food matters more than perfect numbers
💡 The Honest Truth
The healthiest foods often don't have nutrition labels at all - vegetables, fruit, fish, meat from the butcher. When you're buying packaged food, labels help, but they're no substitute for choosing mostly real food.