Nutrition Facts: Glossary and Definitions

Healthy eating starts with learning new ways to eat, such as adding more fresh fruits, vegetables, and whole grains and cutting back on foods that have a lot of fat, salt, and sugar.

Calories. The number of calories listed on a food label tells you how many calories are in one serving. It’s important to remember that even small packages often contain more than one serving.

Carbohydrate. A sugar or starch such as pasta, bread, fruits. vegetables, beans, or dairy that the body uses as its main energy source. Carbohydrates have 4 calories a gram.

Cholesterol . Vital for building hormones and cell membranes. Your body makes most of the cholesterol it needs. Cholesterol is listed under the fat information on a nutrition label. Most people should consume less than 300 mg of cholesterol daily.

Daily value. This shows the percentage of a certain nutrient in a food, based on a 2,000-calorie diet. The daily value gives you an idea of a food’s nutrient contribution to your diet; 5% or less is considered low for that nutrient, 10% to 19% is good, and 20% or more is high.

Dietary fiber . The part of plant foods that we cannot digest. Whole grains, fruits, vegetables, nuts, and seeds contain fiber. Fiber helps fill you up, can help lower cholesterol, and keeps you regular. You need at least 25 to 38 grams daily. To be considered high in fiber, a food must contain least 5 grams per serving.