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NUTRITION LABELS

Reading nutrition labels is a great way to know how much sodium is in the foods we eat. Always keep in mind the magic number of 1,500 milligrams of sodium, and that you should have no more than that in a day.

Imagine a nutrition label from a can of “No Sodium Added” soup. It might say that a serving size is one cup, that there are two servings per container, and that there are 50 milligrams of sodium.

The serving size tells you how much is in the serving and how many servings are in the ENTIRE package of food. Nutrition labels may be based on more than one serving in the entire can or package, so make sure you check carefully. In this can of soup, there are TWO servings of one cup each. This means that you have to multiply each measure by two to know how much is in the entire can, so if you eat both servings, or the whole can, you’re eating twice as much as the amount per serving.

In this can, there are 50 milligrams of sodium per serving. Since we know that there are TWO servings in this entire can, we can multiply 50 milligrams by two, and so there are 100 milligrams of sodium in the entire can. Remember, you should have no more than 1,500 milligrams of sodium per day. So this can of soup, with only 100 milligrams of sodium, would be a good thing to eat.

Be careful when you’re looking at sodium levels; it can be tricky. You may find a product labeled “Low Sodium” or “Reduced Sodium,” but if you look carefully at the nutrition label, you might see that the sodium level is still really high per serving.