Ever read your favourite food packet and the words turn into hieroglyphics? There are so many numbers and complicated ingredients it’s hard to decipher and to know when to even begin!

When you care about health and wellness and what you put into your body, it’s a good practice to get to know what’s on the packaging of the foods you eat and drinks you drink. When it comes to our health, it’s good to take 100% responsibility for what goes into our bodies. A good place to start is to turn over the pack and get the goss on the back of the pack.

All text, graphics and images on food packaging has to meet certain standards. For this blog, we’ll focus on the two most important and consistent elements -  the ingredients list and the nutritional information panel. These are both, quite rightly, stringently regulated.

At Supercharged Food, all our Love Your Gut products are foods so fall mostly under Food Standards Australia New Zealand (FSANZ). You’ll be reassured to know FSANZ is a world leader in food regulation. The standards are high which helps not only us consumers but also the food industry - ensuring an even playing field of information.

If you’re interested in just digging around, the Food Standards Australia New Zealand site is a veritable Google of food regulation and information.

The ingredient list

When it comes to the ingredient list it should be fairly straightforward and to-the-point. It’s not a place for marketing puffery!

Be mindful of preservatives and additives, especially those with the dreaded numbers beside them! It’s hard to avoid these foods but keep them in moderation and strive to find ingredients closest to their natural state.

Some lists are fairly detailed, going into some detail about the ingredient, such as whether it is certified organic or where it is sourced.

It can be overwhelming to wade through some ingredient lists, especially those that get technical. We prefer the more to-the-point lists. Having said that, as nutritionists we like to go deep on the ingredients, such as what they’re derived from, their providence and what other terms do they go by.

For example, our Love Your Gut powder is 100% diatomaceous earth. As there are many types of diatomaceous earth we add the specifics 'amorphous silica, freshwater type’ and the brand of diatomaceous earth we source - Fossil Shell Flour. These are also markers of quality and food safety.

Nutritional Information Panel (NIP)

Nutritional panels are an information motherlode!

The basics are:

Daily serving size - any nutritional claims must be based on this amount, not the entire contents of the pack

Percentage; the far right of a panel should contain the ‘per 100g or 100ml’ of the product. This is useful to check out the percentage of a nutrient - whether it’s too high for you.

Key nutrients: Energy or calories, protein, fat, carbohydrates or sugar, dietary fibre and sodium or salt.

Then there’s additional nutrients. These are added when a claim has been made elsewhere on the packaging.

Again, using Love Your Gut powder as an example, we added ‘silica’ and ‘iron’ as the powder is a good source of both these minerals. And we mention them in our text.

In future blogs, we’ll keep pick apart food packaging, to help you train your attention to the aspects that will help your health.

Check out this delicious Apple Pancake recipe that contains our Love Your Gut powder. We think you will enjoy!! Get the recipe here.