This is an excellent article printed in the Wall Street Journal originally.

How to decipher food label information

PROBLEM: Making sure your family is eating the right foods.

SOLUTION: Decipher food labels by knowing the code words for high fat or sugar content.

Calories and fat grams are easy to follow on food labels, but other details can be misleading.

Here’s the must-know information:

• Words that are tip-offs to sugary content. High-fructose corn syrup is a sweetener extracted from corn that is equivalent to sugar. Likewise, any ingredient that ends with “-ose” (such as fructose, sucrose, or dextrose) is a sweetener. The higher it appears on the label, the more you’ll find inside.

• Watch the total grams of sugar per serving. Four grams of sugar equals one teaspoon (most 12-ounce cans of soda contain nine to 10 teaspoons). Products that are labeled as meeting 100 percent of the USDA Recommended Daily Allowance for vitamins and minerals (such as fortified cereals) might not be all that nutritious if their sugar content is high.

• Food makers will sometimes try to make their fat and sugar contents appear smaller by using unrealistic serving sizes (such as claiming a vending-machine-size bag of chips is actually two servings).

Source: TheState.com, http://www.thestate.com/mld/thestate/business/16430028.htm